I take notes on my thoughts, in the car,
outside the grocery store,
jot
them down on a previously important envelope.
Or I take notes on half-
on some
of my thoughts, arranging them like a composition of music,
I write about an author I was reading a year ago, this new, shorter
story woven with
similar theme. I hone my words in, focus on,
not necessarily,
the battle
between good and evil but the
perplexity at the
notion of it.
I think of the author's words, then and now,
shaping thoughts into questions posed for future generations,
but more than that, I think of the craft produced and bestowed,
designed
to prompt another story.
I cast off guilt of self-indulgence.
I am happy.
I am delightfully entrapped by another book. The paradox of savor and rush. Each page holds a sweet
surprise of sentence
so I earmark
because the book is mine.
I taste the
formation of style and
artistry, circle the words on the mind
of my tongue, dizzied by
simple brilliance. How do writers do this? Mix things up,
shake them around, piece them back together
to stunning bloom and perfection, fold them into paper airplanes, fly them
so they land, new and pleading, true and provoking similar thought,
rolling at night,
tumbling to
be remembered?
And in the fog of the midst of a good book, I walk, groggy, content, prolonging moments.
A state known to
travelers of this sort,
jet-lagged from world lapse. What if we stayed, appropriating time,
nibbled all
day, words for nourishment, long and fruitful, abandoned
short spurts
and pictures of
feasts and dined
on the delicacy of story? Quit summarizing and glorifying 'to the
point'. What if there was never the need to place a loathsome
word like television in a poem, if the contemplation of throwing the object out
discarded the word as well from our vocabulary and our homes. We'd learn enough, I think. I'm
re-collecting wonderment in people, cooking from books, recipes for ripeness.
Shamelessly plotting the
outline of
returning to a changed outlook. I'm thinking of homespun yarns and origami and tables of skilled, wakened artists,
gathering colors for their words, their wealth of wisdom growing.
Because what gift better from a mother than
this love transmitted from The Word, to the
words that carry and heal, remind, bring peace and belonging and purpose, that ache from honesty, raw and exposed, trickle
to
teach the
power of life and
death, the responsibility so huge but the
gift so beautiful that eyes can see new loveliness in shrunk, wet flower petals left on a bathroom sink,
so precious you almost can't bear to write it down.
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