#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Morning Brook

Frank and I both awake early, and he walks to the river with me so we can chat a bit before he has to turn back. I have a busy day ahead. So many songbirds and owls and woodpeckers making delightful noise. Frank walks me to the garden before he goes in, he has an idea for making a winding footpath through the garden, and he wants me to point out where I want him to build the leanto. (In the center!) Then I walk to the brook, and into the woods for awhile. I have my Farm Pond Writers and then two board related meetings, and by then it’s almost late afternoon and I have not made enough time for getting a poem ready. Energy low, I open the only poem I think I can work on, a revision. I’m immediately discouraged by what a rough draft this seems, and I already workshopped it once. Sheesh. I spend an hour on it and I’m not happy with it at all, and break for dinner, and rest awhlle, but soon see that I have to get back on it. Somehow, by tinkering, I manage to shift it into something I’m beginning to believe in. By the end of the evening, I send it off, accepting that it’s further along with flaws, but I got it done and didn’t give up. I am really appreciating listening to Empire of Pain, which traces the history of the opiod crisis and the Sackler family, by Patrick Radden Keefe. It’s excellent, as I knew it would be. I loved his writing of Say Nothing in 2019. i’m listening to his author recording and it’s so well researched and fascinating––and dark and tragic, of course. I did absolutely no yard work today. None. Well, I broke a few dead tree branches off on my walk and that was enough. All the colors of the spring signify renewal. On tv tonight, there is a stunning image too: President Biden at the podium, and, directly behind him, the faces of two women leaders, the most powerful women in the government.