#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Morning Brook

. . . Through the raw dawn the shepherd homeward brings

The wee white lambs – the little helpless things-

For shelter, warmth, and comfortable care.

Without his help how hardly lambs would fare-

How hardly live through winter’s hours to spring’s! . . .

~ Excerpt from "January,” by Edith Nesbit

Craving color by he river. Today, it is less frozen and very tranquil, after yesterday’s rain. So am I. It’s later when I go out and I am glad for the way the water of yesterday has moistened the bland earth and every shade is a bit darker and more attractive. This color lifts my mood and sparks my energy. I don’t stay out for a long time today, but it’s enough. Indoors, I surprise myself by opening a poem I started two weeks ago and I begin revising. I like where it’s going, how it’s going, even though I have doubts too. How do I feel while I am working on it? Happy, interested, focused, thoughtful, creative, imaginative. It’s after that the doubts take over, question what I’ve done, why I’m making it. Who cares? How I felt while writing, if it was expressed a a color, the color would be the color of the old mushroom at the base of the tree, aged with lines and moistened with rain into a fiery orange red. Pleasantly, fiercely, joyfully hot. I ran into my son while returning from my walk, in the yard, crossing paths. I have not hugged him in so long. We stop and talk at a safe distance. We catch up. Here’s the color again, heating my heart: I tell him, imagine, when the vaccine is here, and we even meet indoors again in the same room. I can touch his shoulder with my hands again. Be near, nearer, breathing the same air.