#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Morning Brook
Oh, January, almost gone. At 4:00 a.m. I rose to drive my husband to his flight out of Logan. I let the dogs come. But it was still dark once we got home and so we had to wait to go out into the cold. Once we did, the woods were dry, cold and tedious. And I was tired from the day of cleaning closets, and my mood was kind of flat – January blue. My first two photos, the sky above the river, black and blue, and then the snowy railroad ties and the silver blue streaks of the tracks and the trees black. I grumbled along, wearily, wishing I could wake into energy and enthusiasm. Not enough sleep, certainly. This morning it was costing me. Then, near home, I had to cross the brook, wade the icy overflow, wet my feet. And suddenly, I stopped. The thin ice on the rippling brook was calling me, and I knelt into its blue and brown swirl and flow. Quite a surprise, the beauty of it, saving the day. The long day after not enough sleep. It fed me, this picture. In moments of tiredness and dreary thoughts I suddenly remembered the brook and my luck and the pleasure of knowing inspiration is always somewhere if I’m looking. I can count on its surprise. I am so busy lately, with good and worthwhile wonderful things and also packing. Packing so much into a day, the fear I won’t get to it all, and then, of course, I do. I even squeezed in dinner with my daughter in Cambridge before my Monday night group - and the poems were varied and excellent, but not without flaws. And mine, flawed too, but maybe slightly excellent in its own way, if I keep at it. And I will. I was too tired to go to group - too tired to drive into the dark cold night of the city and sit for two hours and drive home late all the miles to bed. When I actually did it, I wasn’t tired. Then, Charlie greeted me, pushed past me out the door in a passion to bark at all the animals trespassing on his territory while I was away. He held all that barking in and then exploded at the woods with his dominance. His yard. His protectorate. Suzi, she stayed in for the cookie and worried for him to return.
