#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Above me, the branches toss toward and away from each other

the way privacy does with what ends up

showing, despite ourselves, of

who we are, inside.

~Excerpt from “Of the Shining Underlife,” by Carl Phillips

Oh, stiff and tired, I snoozed and then rose, reluctant and determined. Charlie slept in. Soon enough, they found me and I fed them. He had such a big, big run with me yesterday, I knew, today, he could wait. I got on my bike in the muggy hot and still air and rode to the dock. My friend was writing. We are so disciplined. I stretched and then opened my own notebook and took a few notes for the poem draft that I began Monday. Soon enough, took my swim, not a hard one, not a long one, but a freshening one, and I was glad. Charlie was glad to see me and to get a short walk. The mosquitos, bloodthirsty in the wetlands. What a wonderful Thursday morning workshop; the poems were so exceptional. So stimulating. I felt that glad feeling when someone, more than one of us, brings a poem that’s just so good. And mine, the revision from one that two weeks ago was so unsatisfying, this week shines. My revisions work, and I’m pleased. In the afternoon I finish a solid draft of the new poem about a summer haircut from my childhood. One daughter is having her cut as I work, seeing Linda, my beloved hairdresser. The other daughter comes in, flops into my red chair across from me: I need a haircut, she says. Do you think Linda will see me? Then, even later in the afternoon, a storm. My husband, done early, and I are on the deck chatting, relaxing. The clouds come, the rain starts. We move into the shelter of the screened in porch, happily talking. But the wind blows up, blows the rain through the screens. We are happy. We stay out in the storm. But then, a swift streak of lightning, my quick disturbance. Enough. I go inside, and soon, he follows.