It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like....

Today's dusting of snow breathes new life into the landscape. Everything shimmmers and catches the scant sunlight. Grateful, I look outside at trees standing resolutely on the edge of something. Every day is a little longer, adding minutes in that march toward a growing season. I don't know which window to look out of--the one that overlooks the ordinary asphalt and dead grass or the one that only reflects what can't be easily seen. I am interested in what is behind the ring of hills, over the stone wall. I have seen wild turkeys, deer, fox, chipmunks, squirrels, and raccoons. What have I missed?

Sadnesses and Celebrations

The dried flowers in the vase on the linen tablecloth promise nothing. On this short day, I gather in. Late fall mornings are proclamations; startling in their chill and barren beauty. Hills of sharp trees and matted grass slide by me. I cannot change the pain of others which persists even as the time ahead for all of us grows shorter. Language amazes me in its intricacies, always providing a way to render even the tragic, bearable.

My collaborative book of poetry with Geraldine Mills, The Other Side of Longing, is out in Ireland and soon to distributed by Syracuse University Press in the United States. It is a beautiful book, graced by Russ' photograph of seaweed colors underwater at Tullen Strand in County Donegal. The collaboration is now a permanent work of art and I feel lucky in many ways. I'm humbled by the opportunity to read, to travel, to continue to grow as an artist.

My resolve is strengthened to make writing central to my life. It is all I can do--observe and render those observations vivid. In this way, I begin to make sense of the resolute screen that breaks my view into tiny squares that are the fragments of a world I cannot control.

A Sense of Completion

The final edits for my collaborative collection of poetry needed to be finished the same weekend I was responsible for a large fundraiser to benefit a friend who lost her husband. It occurred to me (as it has before in other collections) that this was it--any changes I missed would not be in the book. I stayed up most of the night on Saturday night after the fundraiser to get it done, hoping that it was the best work I could muster for a book that is something entirely new for me. That's how my life is--teaching at night, teaching during the day, running a poetry project for second graders... It's a restlessness that leads me to continually invite new challenges. Still I take periods of solitude where I just write. I look forward to my next getaway to beautiful Enders Island in January.

Our upcoming collection, The Other Side of Longing is a collaboration with Geraldine Mills and we will launch it both in the United States and in Ireland. We each have twenty poems in the collection, speaking to folklore, culture, and the natural environment of our respective countries. Working with another writer has been a joy. Geraldine has brought her special humor, insight, and attention to detail to our work and our friendship. It is not possible to take on something different and remain the same. I think often of the directions I can go in with my work and the risks that one needs to take to continually create at a high level. I will spend time on fiction this winter, taking my story and my life to another level.