“. . . with the smell of apples and pears. O old-fashioned
cupboard, what stories you must know, it's obvious
you'd love to tell them each time your wide doors
slowly open and you clear your throat.”

Excerpt from “The Cupboard,” Le buffet, by Arthur Rimbaud, translated by Stephen Berg

Wake in the dark, still, but it’s morning, and I have agreed to meet my friend in the meadow with our dogs at 7 a.m. It’s a tough rising, and a cold morning outside the door. Layers and gloves. Above the morning marsh the moon hangs between the trees, we frisk along the leaf spilled path, warming. Trees still blazing gold. I’m running a bit late, but must stop at the trestle bridge to catch the last of the mist rising under the foliage of fall. Now it’s light, plenty light, and the sky bright blue. I have already finished my prep for The Farm Pond Writers, I have plenty of time; our walk is expansive over the trails between our homes and the dogs romp. We talk writing. She is working on prose, I am working on poetry. I will not have time to work on my poems today. I have my morning workshop and my evening workshop, a critique group I run online. In the morning workshop, we are a full house, a chattering studio of writers who seem to spark each other’s creative life with an electric charge. The room is warm and safe and stimulating. I bring a prompt about writing from a container, a chest, a cabinet, a drawer, a body part can be a container. it’s a rich response. (Readers, if you would like me to e-mail you the prompt, please let me know tomorrow and I’ll send it write over - kellydumar@gmail.com). Last night I dreamed of my daughter, my youngest, so she is on my mind, and I write about her from the prompt while the others are writing. In the afternoon, she calls, asks if I want to meet her for dinner, and I do. From the dream, to the writing, I feel as if we’ve been together all day, and still, there we are in the restaurant in person, and this is interesting, this new territory. Meeting in the middle of the two different places we now live. It feels very right to me, she will return to her home, me to mine. it makes the time spent together even more precious. Home, after dark, to the evening group, and the writing room we make with each other online is also warm and charged and less chatty, but friendly, meeting across the miles. One, even joins us from an entirely new day; from Australia, where it’s tomorrow. This is not a writing generative meeting, it’s writing review, of poetry and prose, and we listen and comment. And the comments are rich, incisive, appreciative. Every writer brings something so different. It’s a poignant and riveting two hours. Now the rain is heavy on the roof, gushing from the gutters, and a fierce wind is whistling in the night. The leaves, gold, clinging to the trees must weaken, be blown to the ground, oh, the trees will be so much more bare in the morning, and I will walk all over them in the wet wet morning.