#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Waking up is a parachute jump from dreams.
Free of the suffocating turbulence the traveler
sinks toward the green zone of morning.
~Excerpt from “Prelude,” by Tomas Transtromer, transl. by Robin Fulton
More dreams of my father before I wake up. He is missing. Absent. I tell my uncle, his living brother, hoping he can help find him. I tell him he’s not returning our calls, answering our e-mails. He is unreachable. My uncle is concerned. The dream shifts, and then I’m in my poetry workshop on Monday nights, and there is my father, handsome and smart in his dark suit and tie. He has come to hear me read a poem. Then, I wake up. And I write for awhile about the dream, finding connections, making sense. And I decide to work on revision, my poem about the riptide; I have workshopped it twice and feel it is very unfinished. I do think I improve it; but feel it still needs so much more clarity, and on my walk, I think about it a lot, and begin to have some fresh insights I feel I can apply. It’s a melting morning, and the ice has a film of water on it, there are gaping holes and water fresh and cold rippling. I don’t go far on the ice, it’s crackling. It take me quite awhile to find a picture I’m at all happy with. The brook and the trees, their filmy reflection on the milky ice. But the picture I like the best I find near the trestle bridge at the very edge of the Charles. I am looking out onto the iceless river and notice a tree stump beside my leg. It has been chewed, I realize, by a beaver. I’ve never noticed signs of the beaver in this spot. I keep going and meet two dogs and their family, and the woman tells me the story of a dog in Dover being kicked and gouged by a buck recently, and for some reason, that’s why her dog is wearing a bell. In actuality, I know this story is like the “telephone” game - it’s not a true story. I know the people whose dog was injured, badly, but not by a buck’s kick and antlers. I saw them at a Christmas party and they told me the whole story of how their dog was hit in their driveway just after dark, badly injured by what most likely was an Amazon delivery truck. And it managed to make its way to the door of the house. The dog is still recovering. It was a vet who said, well, it might have been a deer; but the next vet, the emergency one, said, hit by a vehicle, clearly. In any case, I kept walking. Charlie and Suzi chase the deer all the time with very very little chance of ever catching up to one. Our friends’ dog it also a sweet lab. Nearing home, I tripped. A stick on the edge of the trail tripped me, and I felt flat on my face. Bam, right on my nose and my knee. It really hurt. I fall quite often in the woods, unharmed. This time, there was no chance of catching myself, or rolling or anything. Just bam flat on my face. It was a pretty painful walk home, and my daughter and son met me at the door and got me iced and comfy and comforted very quickly. And I was afraid I’d seriously hurt my nose and my knee and was dreading being laid up. But, then I was able to stand and within an hour I was walking just fine. I’ll be a little sore tomorrow, but nothing’s broken and I’m just fine and I’m grateful I got my walk in before the mishap. And grateful for the TLC and the roaring fire my son built to warm me up.
