odd how even so few as three words can be rearranged.

 
 
it’s kind of a zoo inside my head.   pardon please doubtless mistakes I’m near bound to make.   but I’d like to think kindly of each and every wild critter here contained.   fair warning though, they might just lick your face.

old adage.   you are what you eat.   I have one, more my own.

       you are who you appreciate.

so that’s big half of what I’m doing here.   neither is that meant figurative.
you, you’re included too.   let’s begin.   join me please.
 
 
 
about relationship.
 
mother, Virginia.   fair enough starting there.   grandmother, Janet.   great uncle, Louis.   young uncle Robert, we said, Bob.   blood family.
 
 
Carolee Bennett.   do what’s different, unexpected, as often as you can.

Ren Powell.   prose is poetry.   she taught me that.   organically.

Laura Bloomsbury.   photography is poetry.   see, she is.

Cindy Knoke.   colors like this woman.   I do too.

Kerfe.   she’s all over the place.   thankfully.
 
 
not forgetting, Julie.   she who cares for me.   my life is hers.
 
 
have you noticed.   I have.   who you appreciate becomes more beautiful.
again, not figurative.   maybe my eyes just open more, really see in front of my face.   whatsoever the truth, it pleases me.   sincere.

due regard, William Stafford.   he who openned poems to me.  no less, my life.   American poet and pacifist.   Appointed the twentieth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1970.

       Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.     Stafford
 
I do.
 
 
 
about writing.
 
why write.   said before, however.   bottom of an unhappy barrel, I made a prayer, said, what do I do?   commonplace thoughts swarmed round my head.   next day arrived.   no clouds parting.   no face of god overhead.   but more clear than blue sky, one word.   write.   just that, nothing more.

I took it as genuine.   besides, if I posed a prayer, least appreciative response would be, take the answer to good heart.   I did.   what’s that not mean – not write and publish, not a great novel, not even poetry (my choice, that), not write well, not fame or recognition, not one whisper more.   write.

I took it like a father might say to a son, please go mow the lawn.

that’s the gravity beneath my sky.   I feel thirsty when I don’t.   yes, true, I have self-centered thoughts, like anyone and there are issues about what poems have for a result.   sometimes I’ve nearly stopped.   but the boat remains.   now, current has more draw.
 
 
not much book schooling on my part, except for those I read myself.
fish in the net.   I try to pay attention.   I work to learn.

I am friends with words with language, with meanings and good faith.

I like poems that talk with themselves.

I like fresh caught words.   not the same porridge every day.   please.

I make my own rules of thumbs.   what works is what works.   nothing else matters more than shoes & socks.

       faith to me means, god never took us out of paradise.

so remember who and where we are.   no lies.

no world traveller.   so write from where I live.   small observations.

free associate.   this process I trust implicitly.   ask, what response comes to mind, trust that it relates.   why.   because it just did relate.   someone wisely once said, in life understanding is the bobby-prize.   accept what you receive.   some call that grace.   me too.

engage.   that’s the part that rubs the most.   writing is a solitary process.   fine.   but later, can we talk, writer to writer, person to person.   curiosity.   (honestly, lonely sometimes).   (don’t play if you’re unwilling to pay the price.)   (but still, you understand.)
 
 
 
some bowls I bring to this feast.   a few more pages wanting me.

poetic minimalism.   big words for small things.   fewer words that shy from contribution given.   more focus laid to active words, old habits require labor to break.   but look, where the meaning rests.   as well, more like real life casual conversation, corners rounded off.

space & form.   these do matter to me.   constantly.   regarded like commas and periods.   like music is, the space in between is how the notes take needed breath.   confess I’m as much visual as audible.   maybe I think they are the same.   can’t help myself.

and a tail I hope forgives me some.   or not.   I consider no-sin to try and fail when the labor is of good heart.   some new path through the briar.   learning smiles more on failure than any otherwise.
 
 
 
last and first, slow drum that it is.

there are issues afoot.   two doctors examine and treat and say, doing well all considered.   yet that’s not how I feel inside myself.   don’t know last pages, not yet I think.   however aggrieved if I move out of sight with no due right thanks given to some ones who’ve been good company.

odd to say, but, explicit serves better fare than implicit, unknowing.

       I want to appreciate being alive.

know this.   to write is one gift.   to read is another gift.

       my gratitude.