Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The Gathering of Words

Today is a thick-leaved day.  Quiet day.  A sleep in for as long as you can day. 

Memorial Day was for cleaning and talking with my dad about his army days.  He worked in the burn unit and told me the story of how some lieutenant was explaining about a phosphorescent bomb in some hole in the ground and one of the soldiers accidently dropped it and the lieutenant jumped on it, yelling, "Get out of here you guys!"  Apparently he was so burned my dad couldn't find a vein to draw blood and the guy told my dad to try his earlobe, which worked.  Talk about heartbreaking. 

So I'm reading this wonderful book about Joseph Cornell (thanks to Kathleen Kirk, who was reading a different JC book, but I got this one) called Joseph Cornell:  Master of Dreams which is this slightly oversized glossy book with gorgeous art-work and not too boring details about his early life, but sort of sinks right into the art.  I like that.  I'm also trying to work through some of the journals I grabbed at this year's AWP:  right now I'm reading Lee Ann Roripaugh's very inspiring essay "Bodies, Rest, and Motion," from the 2011 South Dakota Review and her time at the Sandhill Crane Migration Literary Retreat.  She moved me to actually start writing a poem, which is what you want good writing to do, if at all possible. 

I'm also trying to get back into writing in my journal because I need that practice and also need that  if I'm ever gonna write more poems than just one or two a month.  Not that I'm complaining about getting any poems, obviously, but the gathering of words and images is something that needs to be done first.  And it takes a long time.  At least for  me....



The Secret Lives of Maps
         Yvette Christiansë 

On occasion, the animals
curl into themselves, their skins,
and we—not knowing why—
put our faces to the wind
and sniff. We believe,
we carry ourselves
as believers and our progress
is high and our foreheads
are high, our voices tell us
we are good and the winds
give back to our hopes
the scent of rewards that rose
and stacked themselves
to the bases of clouds,
as if the clouds themselves were
the sails of our dreams.



From Verse Daily

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