Now Playing (with cheesecake crumbs on the buttons):
“Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen

“Did you know he was a Jersey boy, William Carlos Williams?”

That was Word Raccoon’s opener yesterday. She strutted into my brain like she owned the place (which, let’s be honest, she kinda does).

I hadn’t known it. But apparently WR decided I must know it right then. 

“That explains a lot,” I murmured. 

“He practiced medicine in New Jersey his entire life,” she whispered, as though she’d uncovered a secret mafia tie, “Equal parts grit and tender poet.” 

“The Red Wheelbarrow” wafts into her mind at random times. It is one of her favorite poems. And mine, ever since it was slipped into my pocket like a meditation.

We came late to it. While visiting Thomas Hardy’s birthplace, I told a poet friend how much it lingered with me. He blinked and said, “You know that’s a very famous poem. People have written dissertations on it.”

Well, no, I hadn’t known. I just knew I couldn’t quit thinking about it after I was introduced to it in a creative writing class. I can still picture that rain-slicked wheelbarrow (probably) tipped upside down, white chickens (probably) trying to shelter beneath it.

There’s a patch of rust on the wheelbarrow, and it kinda looks like a big, discolored shovel, in my mind. (Although I think the word “discolor” is suspect. Why can’t we just trust the color to become what it wants to be over time? We’re such control freaks. Sometimes things are more beautiful with age.) 

The rest of my feelings on the matter are in one of the poems. Oh wait, you don’t know about those yet. Let me fix that.

WR emerged from her research (which was supposed to be merely reviewing the poem but there she went down the raccoon, err…rabbit hole), writing two poems: one called “So Much” (placeholder title, she insists) and another called “Modernist Unmarriage” (she is oddly proud of that title).

Meanwhile, I am sorting through 31 journals I’ve saved to Messenger to see if we’re a literary match. WR thinks lists are for accountants, not poets. 

This morning, I tend to agree. 

She also nibbled at a John Green line from a YouTube video: “Good morning, Hank, it’s Tuesday on a Monday afternoon.” WR says that is a poem and refuses to be convinced otherwise, even when I replayed it to show there was verbal punctuation between Tuesday and on. She simply does not care. She’s going to poem it. Sorry, John.

She also tried to launch a melodramatic poem called Listening from the Womb, but even she admits that may be peak raccoon ridiculousness and not my style at all. 

 WR note: I never admit defeat. I simply pause for snacks. And I proposed we call it in utero, but Drema said I was being pretentious. Is being precise pretentious? I think not. She thinks not, too. She just needs a Coke Zero. No one tell her they changed the name to Coke Zero Sugar a while back. She knows. She just refuses to acknowledge it or write it all out. See, Drema, I know things, too.

Oh, and apparently I wrote a poem called Who Wants to Have Dinner? Forgot about that. WR says she would rather split an idea than a dessert but, make no mistake, she will take your cheesecake.

 WR: Cheesecake is not optional. And yes, it made an appearance in the poem.

She scowled when I submitted some micropoems. “Little snapshots with nothing but words to recommend them,” she scoffed. But then she ate a few of them anyway. Raccoons are like that.

And what exactly else should they have in them, WR? Cinnamon?

WR: Cinnamon and edible glitter. Always glitter.

I’ve also been reading Jane Hirshfield’s Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. It is one of those books you know you will have to read again. Every page feels like one of the solar lanterns on my porch that flickers on just before the main lights click in, leaving you wondering if you really had caught the epiphanic glimpse you thought you had.

(You did, though.)

WR: Epiphanic?? Have you ever used that word in your life?

Sorry for the back and forth with my raccoon, but WR, you know I had to look epiphanic up. But I do use epiphany on the regular, thank you very much, you hairy striped monster.

Yesterday’s chapter was so dense I had to reread sections three times. I’m sure passages I read will drip into posts eventually. But anything I say about the book will feel anemic compared to what it deserves. 

I set a timer to keep myself on task and just started reading, sunglasses on. My brain works in funny ways. I can really want to read something, but sometimes I have to pin my monkey mind down. Other times, you cannot pull me from my reading with a crowbar. 

Ah, the funhouse of a creative mind.

WR swore I looked chic in the sunglasses. I thought I looked like a raccoon pretending to start a band. My eyes are sensitive to whatever is in the air right now, and the sunglasses help. Necessary if I want to stay outdoors. I do. As long as possible. 

Hmm…do they make battery-powered heaters? Maybe I could bring one with me to the café when it gets colder to lengthen the season. I’ve already claimed a heater I will be putting on my porch at home when the time comes. 

While I prefer temperatures warm enough that I can sit outdoors, my heart also goes ticky tac for the leaf dance, the day when a big wind comes and whooshes away the leaves and you’re sad to see them go, but the ballet is stunning. And also, you get to see the bones of the trees then. I like knowing everything. Call me nosy or just inquisitive. When I’m interested, no tidbit is too small. But also, I can wait for the tree to reveal itself to me. 

WR: Ticky tac? Fine. But only if it’s keeping time with Queen.

(Word Raccoon and I have been watching with disapproval as some of our favorite trees around town get felled for “progress.” Bastards. I have to keep an eye on Word Raccoon because she’s been threatening to chain herself to one. ) 

Anyhow, the chapter in Nine Gates was so good I even started sending screenshots to some of my arty ppl. Hirshfield makes you want to underline everything, though WR claims she prefers highlighting cheesecake menus.

Of course she does.

Now she’s pawing at the cheesecake jukebox, ready to press play again.

I, for one, am ready to write something creative. 

But what?