#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Morning Meadow Map: Puddle Grass Ice
I walked with a good friend and all our dogs into the meadow where little puddles in the mown grass made maps of ice. Under the pewter sky, in view of the leafless trees and berried bushes, we talked and talked over all history of our lives in past weeks and the dogs ran ahead, then behind, and it was quite cold, a storm coming, and we didn’t mind, crunching along, telling all the news. Later, I spent the day writing and thinking about astonishment and found a poem I didn’t know by Galway Kinnnell, published in the New Yorker in 2013. Every stanza held jewels, and I could quote them all, but perhaps, like this one best, about the makers, because most days it’s natural, and especially when I’m writing or wanting to write, and wanting to write well, to work so hard at writing when it doesn’t seem to lead to a stellar outcome, how easy it is to feel humbled; I was made in a hurry, fashioned imperfectly, inclined to crack.
“The present pushes back the life of regret.
It draws forward the life of desire. Soon memory
will have started sticking itself all over us.
We were fashioned from clay in a hurry,
poor throwing may mean it didn’t matter
to the makers if their pots cracked.”
