The day begins without rain. I walk at Medfield State, half with my friend, and half without, after she goes. Everywhere there are violets and webs and trees in bud. To walk out of the shaded woods into the fields and grounds of the old hospital is a surprise; there is so much spring. I woke up deciding not to go to my poetry group tonight. Nothing ready. The poem I started this weekend unshaped. I tell Frank I won’t be going. Except I open the poem and get a first line. It’s not the poem, but a related one. On my walk, when I’m alone, a thought bubbles up from the writing self: why don’t you relax? You can just go home and relax into this poem. It will write itself. So, I went home and decided to see if this were true, and more or less, it was. I told Frank I was going to group after all. Of course you are, he said. And I did, and I was glad. Glad because my poem seems to be working, and glad because the poems by others are so good I wouldn’t have wanted to miss them. The day ended in downpour. Rain, rain, more rain, and a drenching rain to drive in. The violets are happy and tomorrow the webs will glisten and glitter.
