Thoughts On Process

There is always a lot of list making first:

Bumble bees making love to dogwood flowers, kyanite on the crest of Celo Knob glistening in the sun, a new freckle on my left forearm, sunlight on the patch of yellow pine hardwood floor, double lattes for the smiling blacksmiths.

Then there is the sensorial memory of it all:

The perpetual sighing bzzzzz, the grey-blue rock in pale yellow light, the jolt of excitement regarding proof of spring, the touch-memory of hardwood on my bare feet, the smell of rust and salt trailing behind the blacksmiths as they exit the coffeehouse.

Then there is the attempt to organize, consciously or subconsciously; a search for commonality:

Nature? Home? Heart? Coincidence?

Then the physical act:

Check the clock. Adjust pillow. Sit down. Deep breath. Close eyes. Open eyes. Type. Ignore phone. Keep typing.

At dinner the sound of artists chewing watery lettuce and chicken parmesan, after ten hours on the clock, is enough to send me to the picnic table outside. I eat rice pilaf, poke at steamed raisins, and consider the olives rolling around the perimeter of my plate. Sound lands on some pedestal just outside my eardrum, where it hovers long enough for me to subconsciously acknowledge it yet it never distracts me from my trance. I am dead-dog tired, enamored with bumbles bees as they make fervent love to dogwood flowers, eyes stabbing westward across two valleys in the direction of Celo Knob and home, home, home. Having finished the olives I consider the pungent scent of rust and salt, or sweat on the back of a blacksmith’s neck. Notice how this momentarily turns me on but later reminds me that I need to shower. The day is long and lethargic and could be a poem if I could find one in it. Instead I drive slow all the way home to the sound of only the air across my ears at fifty miles per hour. Four weeks to residency. One poem to write and one essay to revise tonight alone; two hours until bedtime. Slug down a cold hard cider and plop into the chair. Time’s up.