#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Mountain laurel

Charlie’s wish for an early walk comes true. After a day of sun, it’s pleasant to be under clouds in the woods. There is no breeze. The mosquitos are plentiful and attack. Near Frank’s bench at the river there is a massive snapper looking for a spot to dig a hole for her eggs. Charlie sees her but doesn’t react. Yesterday, my daughter walked the dogs for a swim to this spot and she swam too. She swims with the snappers. We move on. I have not decided which way to go. Over the trestle to the meadow and Hospital Road? Or through Rocky Narrows, up and down the trails on this side of the river. I choose the latter. I have opened another Easter poem to revise, a second one I did from a picture, both drafts started in April. I have the first one revised, ready to workshop Monday. This second one will be for a different workshop I’m going to next weekend in Brookline. There are parts of this poem I really like, it’s for my middle daughter, but it seems very complicated and I doubt I can solve it. I am walking by the wetlands when I spot them: the pink mountain laurel blooms I’ve been waiting for. it’s my mother’s birthday and it’s father’s day, and so I text a picture of the laurel to my brothers and sisters, knowing now this will be a happy sign from our childhood with them at Laurel Lake. We stay out despite the mosquitos for a long ramble in the shady woods and there is a light rain. At home, I plant three bushes Frank picked out. I have three more to go, but I’m too tired to dig anymore. Inside, I hack away at the second Easter poem. Still, a mess. Still, doubt I’ll solve it. I spend a good amount of time reading an Adrienne Rich poem, then reading about her. Somehow, this poem is having an influence even though my poem is an Easter and not a November poem:

. . .

How you broke open, what sheathed you

until this moment

I know nothing about it

my ignorance of you amazes me

now that I watch you

starting to give yourself away

to the wind

            ~ Excerpt from Adrienne Rich, November 1968

I don’t want to force it. I just try and absorb it into the unconscious. I turn my lineated poem into prose and then back into lines. I pick up chunks and move them and I cut. I run errands. I take a very very long nap. I return to the poem. I return to the poem. I might be solving it. For tonight, I feel like I am solving it. To sleep on it means I may wake to confusion and mess. Then I will walk on it some more. The doors are open, the air is still. It’s raining and raining. The snapper will have dug her hole, laid her eggs, returned to the river.