To read or listen to poetry requires unmixed attention just as writing it does. And when a poem is read aloud, there's a communal, at times ritualistic, element that can make a reading feel like collective prayer, even if there are only a few listeners in the audience or I’m listening by myself.

~ Ellen McGrath Smith, excerpt from “Poetry As Prayer, Writing as a Sacred Act”

I lingered in sleep, through an exceptional amount of early household noise of husband using the vacuum on the dog hair and daughter getting ready for work and dogs and more, because I couldn’t sleep until around 3:00 a.m. I lost my sleeping spell and stayed up so late reading an article in the NYTimes and then listening way too long to audible. I got up and the house quieted and I went out with Charlie. The foliage is really bursting into color now, especially on the river’s edge. I decided to walk. It became so sunny and warm I thought I might just have to drive over to the pond for a swim. But I wanted to get to my desk and decided: later in the day. I prepped for tonight’s Journal of Expressive Writing open mic event that I was hosting with featured writer Vanessa Gabb. And then I worked on poem revision which I will bring to Monday night workshop, I think. I wanted to revise it fresh from yesterday’s workshop. What I also did was face my anxiety about my new manuscript. Last night, while I was awake, I began to feel doubts about it. So, I just opened it up and re-read it. As it comes together for publication, I am thinking about the title, which I played with, and as I read it I felt happy with it, and very surprised by that. I laughed here and there, too. Then I was very glad that I just faced my fears and resolved them. For today. Then I took a swim, but in the pool, not the pond, because I had lost the sunshine on my head and because I was tired. My goodness, with my window open, I hear far off in the distance the coyote pack yipping like crazy! Goodnight coyotes! The event tonight went very well: like a ritual–-”like a collective prayer.”