making up for lost time

i just got back from vacation with holly's family. we went up to a wonderful lake near hayward, wisconsin, something like 1 1/2 hours from lake superior, and fished for a week. i, who am obsessed with the north, found this opportunity to go further north delightful. and it was not disappointing. but after a while i started to feel a little claustrophobic because i didn't have my own car, boat, cabin, or room. i'm secretly a very solitary individual. i went so far in college as to not allow anyone to enter my dorm room for two semesters. so it was a good thing that it ended when it did because i was starting to feel very crampy after 7 nights in close-quarters with people i could not get away from.

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my internal compass points to water and cold. i don't know why. but the most beautiful things i can remember seeing are (1) the Pacific coast along Oregon, which was icy cold and covered in fog, and (2) one night when i was little when we were being so helplessly buried in snow that it was clear no one would be going anywhere anytime soon (digging oneself out of one's home, buried in snow, is delightful, especially if you have a fireplace). some images of woods in fall, and one week when it was so cold outside that schools and businesses closed, are close runners up. so is the idea of seeing the redwoods.

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writing (and, i believe, all art) is the translation of experience (broadly defined) from one form into another. in order to write you first have to understand how you understand. then you have to decide how to translate what you understand and what to translate it into. but you must also be aware that whatever you have translated you have done only for yourself, and if anyone else seems to connect with it, it is very lucky. for this reason everything i have ever written has been something i've wanted very badly to read.

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on mattresses
blankets
wait
with
pillows
feather
weight
in
the
sun's
gait

"titling"; or, "a poem"

the more i try to do it the more i discover that i really don't care for titling poetry. there are a couple good reasons i can think of, ones that i usually use to explain my aversion in conversation, but honestly, i think i just don't like to name them if i can avoid it--titles are usually explanatory gestures on the part of the poet, and thus often false names, and i would prefer they find their own names with the people they interact with. that seems a little odd and parentish, but it's the best way i can think to put it.

anyway, and with that windy and wordish disclaimer out of the way, i thought and thought about it, and decided, i'm not titling this--i'm not going to do it. i prefer to let it stand on its own and see how it does.

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chimes
type
on
windows
shuttered
from
frost
on winds
whispered
greetings
rise
in waves
flakes
of winter
knocking