I Wrote A Poem! I Cleaned My House! Kind of!

Today I'm coming off that glow that arrives during, and just after, working on something you're obsessing over for about 24 hours straight. It's amazing how empty I can feel of ideas and music and language for so long and then, thankfully, they all come back in a flood and I create something that makes me excited, happy, and that I read and feel like, "yeah, that's a poem." 

In one of my graduate classes, back when I was a fucking baby with stars in my eyes, Derek Walcott said that most of what we write, if we're lucky, is just good verse. Every once in a while (for him), or once in a lifetime (me), we write a poem.

So currently I feel like I wrote a poem, but knowing myself fairly well at this point, I'm conscious of the fact that a few months from now I'll probably look back at the piece and regard it as merely good verse. And that's okay. Because there are fewer stars in my eyes and I'm not quite so young (although maybe I act like a baby), I'm less concerned about the product and more jazzed by the process -- i.e. still flying kinda high off the act of writing/creating. I'm gonna ride it into the weekend if I can.

Also, I'm going to attribute the poem-making to the act of showing up -- making a ritual of waking, sitting at the table half-awake and bleary with sleep, opening a notebook and picking up a pen. Scribbling whatever comes to mind and then, as the coffee kicks in, shaping that into something resembling poetry. Sometimes, the result is just a resemblance. And those scraps stay in the notebook. But sometimes, they become something better, more clear. Actual thought, images, music.

Also also, my boy was sick and stayed home from school yesterday, which is not a reason for celebration, BUT while I stayed home with him I managed to make some headway on the clutter in my living room. He even helped organize some things! (He's a good little dude.) I might have something resembling a writing desk come spring break! Which is good, because I have another micro-sabbatical planned for those five days (the college spring recess does not match up with the grade school spring recess, so I'll have the house to myself for a few hours everyday), and it would be awesome and so grown-up of me if I could work at a desk that isn't covered in old graded papers, documents from 2012 that need to be shredded, dusty and scratched CDs (yeah, I need to chuck those), and random kid ephemera.

It's probably a pipe-dream, but it's MY pipe-dream, man.