WADING THROUGH WORDS

Yes, writing is wading through words. First they hunker behind the gray convolutions of the brain. I nudge them out with a long walk outdoors, maybe some instrumental music, hot tea and candles, perhaps a dip into some good poetry or an exciting well written novel. Then all those anxious words begin to tumble around in my head like so many schools of krill. I toss my net into the chaos hoping to catch the train of a plot, an image to turn into a poem, an exciting character to build a story around. As I string the words across the page the magic happens. Scenes build, sentences become doorways into new worlds, characters spring to life before my eyes. I am compelled to keep going, it brings me back to the notebook again and again. It seems the more ideas I have for poems and short stories, the more ideas I get. Once all those words get loosened up there is no stopping them. I feel free. I believe I am a writer.

I am halfway through revising short stories for my collection. As I finish each one I will send it into the world hoping to find a home for it. Even as more story ideas get jotted in my inspiration notebook I am turning to poetry. I just finished one of Roger Housden's anthologies, "Dancing with Joy," and in my car is the anthology by Marilyn Sewell titled "Cries of the Spirit." I am wading through those words too, setting free my poetic spirit. Once these short stories are done and out and about, a binder full of poems awaits my revisions. They too will find homes I'm sure. Some may even end up here or on my other blog http://www.amarriageofpoetryandart.blogspot.com/.

Like wading into the foaming breakers of the gray-green ocean, I continue to wade into words, my own and those of other poets and fiction writers, and my heart swells like the waves at sea. It's a magnificent way to live.

                                                     ENTER POETRY

                                                In the crook of three evergreens
                                                I perch a book of nursery rhymes
                                                on my sunburned knees.
                                                I sit, criss-cross-applesauce
                                                on cool summer grass.
                                                My lips move as I read to myself;
                                                a conductor
                                                warming up that splendid
                                                synchronicity of sound in my head.
                                                Lyrical images
                                                mingle with an avian chorus,
                                                the swagger of noon breeze,
                                                the squish squash of children’s sneakers
                                                on hot pavement.
                                                I am in
                                                a world of poetry,
                                                at the ripe age of six.
                                                I will never leave.

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