It’s funny about writing—or any creative endeavor. Art, music, gardening, cooking–isn’t living better when we have something to create—to focus on? Something that demands our time, attention, effort? We plan, fret over, hang on to that idea, blow small puffs of air to keep it alive. We sing when it flares up, but when it dies, we’re crestfallen, devastated. Try again, again, so that discipline becomes the rule—write, paint, create music, weed the garden, cook a healthy meal—every day! But life intrudes—dishes, kids, work, phone, texting, spouse, partner, parents, car, email, Facebook, Twitter, making the list, crossing items off the list—everyday tasks that always seem more pressing, more dire than creating.
But when we do sit down to create, train our hands to press ink to the page, fingers to the keyboard, paint to canvas, sometimes we produce what we can be proud of. (Or at least something that deserves serious attention.) Writing’s forever gift of newness, of bringing words to life, captivates those of us who wrestle with the language. Good luck to all who do.
Words hide
in the flickering computer, the jammed kitchen
drawer with knives, frayed rubber bands, convoluted
green wire twist ties that jab when reaching for spoons,
in microwave’s dried spots, in-between bed sheets
where they’re thin as air, words play tag, reveal faint,
silver glint, they hide in the deepest place–water—
pond, puddle, pool, lake, sea—any depth
of blue or green. Waves carve water’s surface;
hands carve air to find words.
© Marie Kane
MARIE KANE -- POETRY & WRITING 