#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

After Rain, Red Maple

“In illness words seem to possess a mystic quality.”
― Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill

Rain last night. Rain over all the leaves and lawn and meadow, a soaking. Low light and low energy, Monday. I walk with Charlie looking for photos, nothing sparks. And I cut my walk short for a swim. Crossing the yard I stop at the blur of red maple, the color-filled spill beneath the branches. I find energy in my swim. Eagerness to get to my desk. Find my way to my poem revision for tonight and tweak it a bit. I want very much to start a new one for Wednesday workshop. My head is fuzzy from my cold. I think I have an idea; but I can’t get it to go anywhere. I play, for awhile with my singing bowl. Stare into the emptiness of having nothing to say; or, thinking what I have to say isn’t worth saying. Then, the poem starts. Is it a poem? Who knows. I’m just writing what comes. What I thought might be there is there. Gosh, it’s a rough rough draft needing a lot of work and I don’t know if I’ll have the time for it tomorrow, but it’s begun. My sinuses ache tonight in workshop but I’m glad we no longer meet in person––I would have stayed home. I felt progress, real progress on my poem revision. It’s close. Today, all day, weather raw, that November drear. I text back and forth with one of my children who is feeling a bleak mood. Sunset, pink, blue gold-burst, it’s part of day, it’s afternoon. Night in the afternoon of November.