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.

The Waning Season

Today was a late fall day dressed up as a summer day. The temperature was unseasonably warm. As I was conducting a poetry lesson, the children looked longingly outside. Finally we escaped and made the trek to a wooded nature trail, complete with two wooden bridges and a stream--something the city children found remarkable. Returning to the classroom, they ran up the big grassy hill, suddenly happy to be children on a rare moment of freedom on a day that felt like June. This, too, is poetry. They listed what they saw on their ride to the school--cows, pumpkins, farms, fields. This, too, is poetry. A soft-spoken girl read the poems in Spanish after I read them in English. Everyone was so quiet, we could hear the murmur of the wind outside. This, too, is poetry.

There are choices--how to find the hours it takes to be a writer, whether or not teaching is worth the incredible amount of time it takes, if any of this makes a difference. Watching the faces of students as they are lulled by words is what every poet wishes for. It is the balance--how much to give and how much to save for my own work. I believe this is important work--writing, teaching. I want to unnumb students and give them back words that express humanity, empathy, observation.

What the Seasons Teach Us

In this past week, my mother turned eighty-six, a friend's father-in-law died at sixty-three , and now the husband of a good friend died this morning--in his fifties. We were hopeful because our friend's husband was so tenacious, defying the odds of finding a donor, passing all the pre-transplant tests. So fickle life and death. Walking this morning after a windy weekend, I noticed the leaves that held on, their gold and burgundy showcased against the chilly spectacle of a late October morning. How many days pass without consciousness of surroundings? The river was moving, sun flickering on the water. I wore gloves for the first time this season. My mother says she is lonesome for my father, doesn't understand why she is living so long. There is so much of life that is out of our control. Like autumn giving way to the bitter pull of winter, we accept the inevitable. We will be the leaves underfoot and we will be the leaves hanging on. We have been buds and we have been full blossoms. I don't pretend to understand any of this. When I see the sorrow of loved ones, I feel the unfairness but life was not designed to be fair. I remind myself of fragility, and hold loved ones close. All I can do is find hidden beauty and tell about it. Life is a season--stunning and cruel. I resolve to do better each day at living, writing, making a difference.