Such uninspiring light. Cloud cover, gray. Dry woods, iced brook. Very cold, but not threatening, tolerable. I saw nothing that really interested me on this grumbling walk. And not looking forward to tonight’s workshop, because I haven’t written or revised a poem all week. And I can’t decide whether to try and come up with something entirely new, which I don’t have enough time today to do, or revise last week’s poem, and I don’t want to, because I have not had any new insights. I keep walking in this mood of resistance in the unappealing woods. Nearing home, I see what I always see: pine cones, thousands, on the ground, on tree stumps, beside the trail, on the trail, everywhere. But I’m curious. Who is eating the pine cones when I’m not looking, who needs this winter food? There is so much that goes on in these woods I’ll never see or know, so much life and activity and survival that has nothing to do with me and my life, and I pass it by, without noticing so much. Nothing, nothing in these woods of Rocky Narrows belongs to me, and most of it came before me and will outlast me. With my one picture, my pine cone food, I head home. I play around with some ideas for a new poem. Hopelessly, with so much resistance, realize I have to try and revise and I still don’t want to, but I won’t go empty handed and I won’t just skip it. They’ve given me some good ideas, but I don’t trust I’ll make anything work. This is how I begin: just do it. Open the damn thing. Move one line. Change one word. Try this line here. That line there. Add a line, two, three. My daughter comes over, she needs to talk. I am happy to listen, I haven’t seen her in a week, and now that she doesn’t live here I cannot put her off; I can, but I don’t want to. The poem waits. It’s an important talk; I seem to offer some helpful things, and she is gone. Now, there is so little time left. I wrap it up. Is it better? Definitely. I have surprised myself.
