Dear Reader, 

The bacon is resting in the oven (please let it be crisp but not too; careful, Drema!). The blueberry muffins are cooling. Word Raccoon is impatiently awaiting breakfast, but I’ve told her she must wait. 

Time for the words. I want to get my thoughts down on Still Life before I even pick up Yesteryear, which is going to be a whole different burn, I’m sure. 

This is not a book review. This is the beginnings of a book admiration society. I would say of one, because I’m the one writing this, but I know I am not at all alone in adoring this book. Actually, I asked for a copy of it for Mother’s Day, since I currently have our local library’s copy checked out. 

Still Life by Sarah Winman appeals for so many, many reasons.

What I’m trying to decide is if my adoration for this book is based on my personal “likes” checklist, or if others would find it just as compelling. 

It has everything. Here’s a partial checklist of just why I adore it: 

• Devotion and loyalty among friends and neighbors to an aspirational degree. 
• A non-traditional “family” that extends to friends and acquaintances.
• Enduring love, although the kind that rolls in and out with the tide. 
• ART!! 
• Florence and art beautifully discussed. Titian’s Venus of Urbino…
• A parrot who knows Shakespeare and communicates just a little more clearly than a real parrot would. Obviously we’ve got a hint of magical realism here.
• Talking trees!! (I mean, I always knew they talked, but these TALK. At least to Cress.)
• A man who is Rocking Horse Winner adjacent, but (spoiler) he hits it big each time. 
• People with access to wealth who choose community and camaraderie over it.
• Room with a View (spoiler, damn) not only referenced but we see Forster in the novel briefly. I mean…
• A painting in the Uffizi which may or may not have once been licked by Roger Fry of the Bloomsbury group (!)
• Art being created, both for profit and freely given.
• Globes! Who knew how fascinating the construction of them could be?
• Art which is lost to the world in the novel and I need to know if that’s true. 
• A historic flood. See above. 
• An abundance of literary references. 
• Food! (Pasta everywhere!)
• Wine! (Red and white)
• Passion (sustained, even though intermittently expressed) 
• The David! (I’m obsessed with that statue!)
• Brunelleschi’s dome (love!)
• Characters you come to care about so much you don’t mind when they wander off the main stage. You find yourself following even the most “minor” characters. That’s a writing feat. 
• Missed connections that you’re told are mere temporary misses. If only she had turned right…
• Music! So much music. Piano, guitar…songwriting…
• Quotable, lyrical writing.
• Fellini! So much Fellini that it feels like you’re being offered another (and there are several) lenses through which to view this book.
• On and on…I feel as if I’m right back in Florence, although the book takes place in multiple locations. 

This novel makes the world seem like a beautiful, difficult, yet ultimately cooperative place. There are no villains here, just wounded or apathetic souls. Even those are loved or at least affectionately tolerated. 

(Notice I didn’t even mention the characters by name except Cress, I think. I don’t feel the need to. While I could point to a couple who are major players, they are all treated with major character energy.)

Who doesn’t want to be loved at both their best and worst? 

I typically avoid saying things I don’t care for in books of living authors, because if the book is published, it’s not like anything can be done about it. But in this case, I’m curious if others agree. 

After the novel’s climax, there is a resolution story thread that has been hinted at and lightly sketched earlier. This extra feels just like that, a scene that would’ve been cut from a movie or, I would suggest, would make a great after-the-novel bonus chapter. It could even live online as a “want more?” bonus. It was engrossing, but it wasn’t necessary. 

(Yes, this book is so good that I’m “complaining” about something that I’m also calling engrossing.) 

“Saturdayly,” 

Drema 

P.S. The blueberry muffins, spread with softened butter, were tasty. I’ve gingerly opened Yesteryear and read the first ten pages and while it is indeed different from Still Life, I still very much want to read it. It has a Stepford-Wives-but-self-inflicted vibe. 

For the first time in over a month, I’m not at all sure I will do anything with my poetry. Except there’s this globe in Still Life, held aloft by its creator in a flood. My discerning Readers will be drawn to it. There’s got to be a poem in that. (Yes, I wrote intriguing lines from the book into my notes app for later possibly writing poems. Do you suppose as a crawling infant I put everything into my mouth the way I taste everything I read through my hands by writing about it?)

Also, I took so many screenshots of this book. This may not be the last you hear of Still Life from me. I haven’t even touched on the innovative POV use, the poetry (real and made to order), Keats, Barrett Browning…when I said this book has everything, I meant it. 

Argh, this no longer feels like a P.S. but another blog post! My hasty words will have to do here. WR says if I’d just go fetch lunch for her I’d have to stop writing. (Yes, it’s now that late.)

Good call, WR. Good call. 

Dear Reader,

This morning began in the blue chair. Tea in hand, book in lap, rain doing its persuasive drip: stay home; stay cozy.

I had the vague and lofty intention of making oatmeal, which made Word Raccoon’s ears perk up.

But oatmeal is not always to be trusted.

If I make it in the microwave for speed and ease, the bowl is never big enough no matter how large or hopeful the bowl and, let’s face it, I feel like I’m half assing it if I do that. If I make it on the stovetop, it takes just long enough for something to go wrong, or nearly wrong, or to feel like it might go wrong.

So instead, in what I can only describe as a small act of genius, I warmed a Clif Bar in the microwave and added peanut butter. And Reader, I tell you: it was almost like oatmeal. Warm, soft, slightly sweet, and, most importantly, reliable.

There is something to be said for choosing what works over what is ideal. I know it sounds…improvised, but I’m kinda proud. WR approved. 

I caught Maureen Corrigan’s review of Yesteryear on Fresh Air. Just a few sentences, really, but enough to suggest that the book might have ambitions beyond snark. And while I enjoy a good bit of snark as much as anyone, I found myself curious about what else it might attempt. (I’m still reading Still Life and my god, I might be in love with a book.)

From there, I found myself in a familiar negotiation with Word Raccoon: whether or not to go to the café. I like the idea of being there, of seeing and possibly being seen, of sitting among other lives in motion. Of listening in when I’m not actively writing. 

But the café is always cold, persistently, and I am not at my best when I am shivering over my own ambitions. It was 67 here the other day. So I took extra time getting ready, putting on layers like it’s winter. 

I submitted a packet yesterday to a place I didn’t realize was even open (and closing!) to submissions. I ended up adding three poems to the chapbook God Blinked for length, and turns out, they very much belonged. 

Today, I have four submissions on the calendar IF I get around to them, among the other “these things, too, must be done.”

To be honest, I want to wrap myself in Pity the Fool and put on my slippers and read with a pot of tea. It’s the perfect day for it. 

After. After the “musts.” 

Parking at the cafe this morning was a headache because of the chitty chat crew, as WR is sulkily calling them today, and our timing sucks because we are the queen of almost and we are pouty about it. Very. 

Well, at least we got a glimpse of a good parking space, even if we stared longingly after the space we wanted. It’s the perfect space. Sigh. 

Let’s write, now, shall we? Or submit? 

Oh, and also, my poem. “Any Color,” is now live over at whimperbang. Many thanks to them for including my work in this issue alongside such stellar work. I’ll write about my poem tomorrow. Much to say. https://whimperbang.com/issue-28/drema-drudge/.

Yours,

Drema

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon and I had a dilemma today. We are about 125 pages into Still Life by Sarah Wynn and loving it, though it’s not a quick read. And then the library texted that they have a book in that WR and I cannot wait to read.

We actually mentioned it to a friend today. AND it’s already been optioned for a movie and was before it came out! 

The book? Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, a debut novel.

Much like those who wisely attached Anne Hathaway to the movie expeditiously (I almost equally want to see the movie as read the book!)I, too, was immediately enthralled with the premise: a TradWife (ugh) influencer gets transported (I don’t even know how) back to the actual time period she has been cosplaying. 

It isn’t quite the pastoral life she imagined, or that she’s been selling her viewers.

After reading the library’s text, WR questioned me. 

“Why are you reading Still Life? Our book is ready. You know I want it now. You want to read it, too.

(Oh, and because life is beautiful and bountiful, we received a message from someone at our local university asking if he could drop off a copy of Twelfth Night to us. Yes, yes, kind sir! So that is now on the dining room table, reminding us that Shakespeare rules.)

WR reminded me that the essay I need to mail is ready to go, and that, oh, if I maybe wanted to drop that in the mail, I could…swing by the library. 

She knows the library is close enough to walk to unless we’re carrying heavy stuff or trying not to bedew ourselves. 

Also, we are already a quarter of the way through Still Life, and we are enjoying it. Art! Firenze! Love! 

She reminded me of the war in it.

Oh, bother. It’s over at this point in the novel, and I’m glad. 

She began running through the list of those we might invite to go see Yesteryear when it comes out. “But you know what…you’ll like it so much better if we read it right now.”

Naturally, I want to oblige her. I’m quite sure it won’t take more than a couple of hours to read it. It’s not, say, Shakespeare, no shade intended.

We have reached a compromise: I will pick it up tomorrow. In the meantime, we will read at least half of Still Life before inhaling Yesteryear. (I will try to keep her from it. When she likes something, she really likes it, Dear Reader. )

Today, a poem, then more novel writing. Bones, just writing the bones of this section, okay, with a little musculature. 

I managed to revise two poems tonight: “Message Tee, Long Jacket,” and “Plato’s Closet.” The latter pits Plato against the resale shop, Plato’s Closet. Why?

I don’t know. Ask WR. Now to find them a good home.

One more day left of prescriptive poetry month. You probably heard WR sigh with relief. She will write more poetry after the month is up, guaranteed, than she did this month. Between that and the chilly, rainy days keeping us indoors, she’s done with April.

She says Aprille has “perced” us to the “roote,” with cold and gloom. We are not pleased at the bare skies.

Readingly,

Drema 

Dear Reader,

Today I tried something slightly rebellious: I did the day backwards.

Word Raccoon insisted.

We went to the gym before caffeine, before breakfast, before any of the usual negotiations. It felt almost suspiciously efficient, like I had skipped ahead in the book of the day.

I wasn’t mad about it. 

Breakfast came after, a sausage avocado sandwich, grape tomatoes, and the quiet satisfaction of having already done something good for myself while using up produce. Maybe I need to write a cookbook called “Cook by Color.” I kinda do that anyway.

It is a ridiculously chilly day for April, the kind that makes you question every decision involving leaving the house. I went to the café anyway, though I did bring backup plans (and layers). 

Wait, I see the sun. Sun! 

And now it’s gone. 

There was a pastry involved before writing. Don’t tell anyone at the café, but it turned out to be slightly underbaked, which feels like a metaphor I’m not going to chase today. It only got two bites to prove itself. It did not. 

There was also Moon Cheese, which reminded me that I do not care for it. (WR brought it as a backup snack, apparently forgetting this. My apologies to those who like it, but it’s basically Cheez-Its with the joy removed.)

I am writing here while I wait for my lunch bunch to arrive, and the day feels oddly open now, as though doing the hard thing first cleared a path I didn’t know I needed.

I don’t know if I’ll adopt the backwards method permanently (I won’t), but for today, it worked.

Sometimes it’s enough to rearrange the order of things and see what changes. 

Now, let’s knock on the novel and see if it opens. I’m ready to say hello.

WR says to tell you that yes, she wrote a poem this morning. It’s about “maybeness.” Probably a notebook poem.

Yours,

Drema 

Dear Reader,

It has been a day of attempts. Which is fine, I guess. 

First of all, the hotel reservations did not happen because the man who answered the phone said he would call me back. He didn’t. They’re a boutique hotel, so they “don’t do online reservations.” Sigh.

I was going to print and mail my submission that can ONLY be mailed. I guess you’d call what I wrote an essay? Anyway, our printer is out of ink and we do not, indeed, have an ink cartridge as I supposed, unless I have put it somewhere unexpected, which I suspect I have. 

Also on the list was my intention to register for tomorrow afternoon’s online poetry reading, but when I went to the form, no one had signed up yet. Word Raccoon noped right over that. We do not do solo readings, not of our poetry, not yet. I will keep checking back, and if anyone else signs up, I will consider doing so, too. 

On the writing front, I did manage about 1K on the novel. When I expand that block, it will probably at least triple because there are all of these seeds just soaking there, and if I spread them out they might sprout. No, they will sprout.

I’m shocked and delighted at how human this character has shown herself to be. There are promising avenues here, and I intend to stroll them all. 

The sun refused to show its face around these parts until after 6 pm, and you best believe I am soaking it in right now. I ran to the porch with my laptop the moment I saw it. 

On this week’s “hit list” is revamping my desk area, which right now it is:

A makeup table (its main purpose)

Mail storage 

Hair care central 

The place where blank journals and notebooks live 

Art supply storage palace 

Electronics home/charging station

The keeper of my vitamins and meds

Anything else that comes knocking. Especially books.

As you can imagine, Stanley told me it’s driving me bonkers because it has too many jobs. I don’t have room for all of my hair doodads, despite having a drawer and a half dedicated to them. My makeup takes up two drawers. The art supplies, a deep one, as well as the notebooks. I think I can safely move those last two categories to the library, probably to the upstairs desk. Then I can find breathing space for the rest. 

The desk is actually my command center, the first place I look when I can’t find something.

This is the junk that clutters my mind when I’m trying to write. All it takes is a system, right? Right? 

Herbert, that crank in my brain, says if all it took was a system, I would’ve worked it all out long ago. 

I’m doing the best that I can, Herbert! 

Don’t mind him, I think he’s unhappy with the mani/pedi I gave myself. Word Raccoon will rap him on the nose if he’s not careful. You know my girl adores her color. She likes many things. Including you. 🙂

I gave her free rein with revising poetry on the porch, and she tidied three enough to send them to “Ready to Submit.” They were “Lazarus Species,” “Having Vonnegut to Tea,” and “Necromancer Duties: Pergo.” So they will be making the rounds soon. It was so freeing to refine what already existed. I really enjoy revising.

P.S. An email arrived today that I’m not ready to talk about yet re: my poetry, but let’s just say it’s a possibility, and we’re chuffed either way.

Dear Reader,

Today has Monday energy, even if it is Tuesday. Yuck.

Word Raccoon was slow moving this morning. She knows I am planning to work on the novel and she is not interested. Not today. I let her write a poem.

“Let…don’t you mean required?” she asked. She’s so ready for April to be over. She wants to write poetry on her own terms! 

Today’s notebook poem mentioned the composer Haydn and how we were taught to pronounce his name by our arts professor. The irony is, I remember how to say his name, but do I still remember any of his music? (I do. Just don’t ask me to name titles.) 

There is a Zoom reading tomorrow to wrap up National Poetry Month with my writing alum cohort. WR is deciding whether she wants to sign up. I suspect she will and that she will insist on reading “Renewal.” We do have a couple of big energy performance poems, but one may be a bit less…formal…than the occasion requires. 

The universe delivered Clutterbug’s podcast to me this morning, right as I was drowning in that familiar feeling of being back online physically with too many things waiting. She suggests choosing three items in three categories: three must do’s, three to move your life forward, and three just for fun.

I haven’t exactly planned these evenly today. 

My three must do’s:
Confirm tomorrow’s lunch date.
Call the hotel to try to get reservations for our May trip.

Prep a couple of items that need to be mailed. One is a writing project that only accepts submissions by mail. Fun and analog.

My big “tame the household” thing today was putting away the laundry that had begun staging a household takeover: bedroom, hallway, library. I set a ten minute timer and got it done with twenty seconds to spare. 

That task had been weighing on me, and now it is done. 

Dinner will be leftovers. I made a pasta bake yesterday that came out surprisingly good for being assembled so quickly. Done and done.

Word Raccoon insisted that if we were going out, she wanted a cozy sweatshirt, but it had to be brightly colored. We own exactly two sweatshirts. She doubled down and insisted that I bring a flannel shirt as well. Which I am now grateful for because why is it so cold in here?? Is the air on??

Last night I watched a video about Flannery O’Connor, which made me want to read more of her work. I have not read any of her novels. The video was fascinating and I want to know more about her now. 

Also, whenever I hear her name, I picture someone in flannel, which feels relevant to nothing and everything.

We are listening to Meghan Trainor’s new album, Toy with Me, because we need something light. Because where is the sun? 

This is a good bop.

Now, the work.

Yesterday I was writing indoors at a café when two women came in looking for a table. It was almost too chilly to sit outside, but I was not going to occupy a table they needed, so I moved anyway. That shift in atmosphere might have been exactly what I needed.

I opened my novel. One of the main characters had softened toward me the other day, and yesterday I sat with her as she read that book I mentioned giving to her that led to her opening up. 

I had given her a book I have not actually read, which means I now need to read it, because she seems to understand it better than I do, and it might be affecting things I don’t realize.

I was able to sit beside her on the settee, watch her read, and then follow her to dinner. It is one of my favorite scenes I have written so far.

I am looking forward to standing near her today, quietly observing, listening, if she lets me. I think she trusts me a little now. She will not let me into her mind yet, but she will allow my presence. That is a breakthrough. She has already surprised me.

This is not poetry, and yet it feels poetic.

I am in that strange place where I want to write more on the novel, but the excitement makes me hesitate. The anticipation is part of the pleasure.

But I do want to write.

I have never approached a more closed character. I will be patient. If I get it wrong, I trust she will let me know.

Meghan Trainor is currently making me want to go to the gym. Not now. I think it is time to switch to something without lyrics. 

Opening the document now.

Or maybe I will finish my breakfast first.

Or, or…

Word Raccoon is eyeing my Coke Zero.

Single minded creature.

Dear Reader,

This afternoon has been a That Thrifting Show afternoon. I started off with a poem about the weather. Original, I know. But it took a turn, as they always do, so that’s something. I won’t say what turn because I’m still going WTH?? 

I followed through with my plan to clean the porch windows, at least the inside ones. I got sidetracked, and not in a fun way. Part of getting to them was moving things, and in the process I moved a sculpture/figure my mother bought me for my birthday a few years ago, one she had my youngest sister pick out with her. As I moved it, I remembered my mom saying she had Cherokee help her find something that said “Paris,” since I had recently been for the first time. 

It was overcast and chilly, and I had re-read my “Grieving Does Nothing for the Dead” last night, so it was fresh on my mind. I distinctly remember writing that poem huddled by a heater on the porch, telling myself that I had to get it together, that Cherokee would not want me to keep grieving so deeply, because it wouldn’t bring her or Mom back. 

After finishing the windows, I sobbed as I moved the sculpture back into place. And sobbed. 

I felt like I was right back in October. 

Today the “storm” lasted only a few hours, and I haven’t had one in a long time now. Grief is a journey, and I know that. 

I made myself eat a salad, unloaded the dishwasher and folded some laundry while watching that show which is pretty fun, if you like thrifting, and I do. Makes me wish I had a huge storage building and could totally change my household aesthetic a few times a year. Some of the painting techniques they showed were fire! 

What I had planned to do before all that was to tell a story about me and window washing, but this post seems heavy now; can this post be saved?

Maybe.

Also, I’m thinking maybe I could get out the step ladder and clean at least a few of the outsides of the windows. That would be a few that wouldn’t need cleaning later. How hard could it be? 

Word Raccoon says she does not approve of more housework, and that I ought to actually put the laundry away if I’m going to do anything else. But Word Raccoon, imagine how much better things will look when we clean the outside of the windows! 

“I’ve had about enough of you today,” she says. “Just tell the story.” 

Fine. When I was in college in the 90’s, I worked at our community pool as part of a youth program during the summer, doing whatever they needed besides life guarding. I am not that strong a swimmer! 

My assignment one morning was to dust, sweep, and clean the windows in a little building just beside the pool, one they typically used for meetings and such. My supervisor unlocked the door and asked if I wanted the radio on. Of course I did. 

He left me to it and I bopped as I sprayed the windows and squeegeed them. Then “Twist and Shout” came on, The Beatles’ version. I found myself on top of a table dancing to it. I don’t know why except I was 19 and that’s what I wanted to do in that moment.

Suddenly the door opened and my supervisor came in and asked if I was finished with the windows. As I climbed down off the table, I told him I was. 

To his credit, he didn’t say anything to me about it, and no one else on the team mentioned it, so I imagine he didn’t say anything to them, either, which was a relief.  

I didn’t get disciplined for it, although a few days later I was asked to weed around the pool’s sign, and it turns out there was poison ivy at its base and none of us recognized it. My fingers were a mess for a couple of weeks, but I didn’t complain much, not even when I had to go to the doctor’s and get a shot. 

I won’t say I deserved poison ivy, because I was in agony, but I think I would’ve been more upset if the other youths had teased me about my cleaning pastime than having poison ivy. 

And ever since that job, I’ve kinda liked washing windows. WR says I can do them all by myself then, if I choose to finish up. 

Maybe I just will, WR. I could use some clearer sight right now. 

Dear Reader,

It’s Day 25 of National Poetry Month. I have written at least one poem every day. Not always willingly.

That wasn’t the goal anyway. The goal was to touch it: to write, submit, revise, even just think toward it. To keep a hand on the thread so it didn’t disappear into the walls, if that makes sense.

Yesterday, I gathered the poems from this month that didn’t yet have a home and gave them one. Two of them I stayed with a little longer. One in particular feels like something I have been preparing to write my whole life, though I didn’t know it until now. It will take time. Patience. A kind of steadiness I don’t always trust myself to have.

And I will have to write it without sentimentality.

Or rather, without the kind of sentimentality that smooths over what ought not be. Sorry, I know that’s vague. It needs to be for now. 

Early this morning, I wrote another poem, this one about mirrors. It’s currently a bit didactic, TBH. But that’s fixable. 

I began the day reading part of  Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes by Maya Angelou, then made what I’ll call a proper weekend breakfast: fried potatoes, fried apples, sausage patties. There’s more to say about that excellent book, and about her, but not today. (I will say this: why do so many of her recipes call for green peppers? Sigh.) 

We put out the rest of the items for Spring Cleanup after breakfast. A van full of young women stopped and took more than half of it, and I felt complete happiness watching things leave us and become useful again. They were so delighted to fill their vehicle, and I was just as delighted to see all of that go to a good home. 

We brought our kitchen chairs out to the treelawn, since we’d picked up two others from a neighbor’s Spring Cleanup pile earlier in the week. Not long after, that same neighbor came over and claimed the chairs we’d just set out.

I laughed and told her we could’ve skipped the middle step and just swapped. 

Later, it occurred to me that those chairs had belonged to her house once already. I bought them years ago at a garage sale from the family who lived there before. The chairs have made a small, quiet circle back to where they started.

I am, apparently, a person who believes in chairs finding their way home.

At some point in the day, Word Raccoon decided the porch needed to be reimagined. There was no vote.

I changed pillow shams, vacuumed the too-flat carpet, sorted decorations, and moved a number of things into the giveaway pile. I claimed the large crock as a porch trashcan (it’s so cute) and assigned the smaller one the task of catching mail as it drops through the slot. Let’s see how good our mail carrier’s aim is. 

The porch also now has a basket for the necessary things such as extension cords, chapstick, the small practicalities, which feels like an admission that this is not just a pretty place to sit but a place where I live part of my life. Where I write. Where I watch.

I’m happy about that. 

I also unearthed fall and Christmas decorations that had been lingering in corners for reasons I cannot fully explain except last year was complicated.

(Why so many, though?)

Rearranging my beach lovies: shells, rocks, sand, driftwood, makes me long to go back to the dunes. We only made it there once last year, and it was not a good trip.

The solar lights are finally outdoors again and in the ground. I hope I have them turned on properly.

The burned-out bulbs in the strands on the porch remain untouched. I’m too tired now. 

It is somehow after seven.

Word Raccoon is indignant that I have not yet written about the excellent cookies.

“Tomorrow,” I tell her.

She does not believe me. She says if I don’t let her do something properly creative soon, it will be on my head.

I am not going to be the one to tell her that Sunday will include outdoor chores and, at some point, window cleaning, if she wants to be able to see all of the lovely wildlife.

She can be reasoned with, and barring that, definitely bribed. I am the keeper of the cookies and the Coke Zero. She will obey. 

Maybe. 

But doubtful. 

Dear Reader,

This morning, the gorgeous poem, “This is Just to Say,” was brought to my attention once again. I quote parts of it often, but I just realized today that I have been misattributing it. My poem, below, a first draft, is the result of this.

Thing is (pun intended), knowing WCW’s stance on poetry, I should’ve recognized it immediately, not to mention it has his style stamped on it, too. 

I’m still looking for that Kevin Prufer poem that has peppers in it (see below).. Unless that, too, belongs to someone else? Sigh. I should’ve gotten into poetry so much earlier.

And obviously I am embarrassed by my mis-remembering. Eh, it happens. 

Word Raccoon is giggling as she implores me to go order a drink, if the crowd has thinned enough. It’s nippy out here. 

This is Just to Say: An Apology

This is just to say,

to William Carlos Williams,

That I am sorry.

Once, years ago now,

your delicious poem,

“This is Just to Say” 

was delivered to me

in a packet of poems.

In my mind, yours

was penned by someone named Kevin

whose surname I have just learned

is not Prufrock. 

I hope, if you read that, 

you would laugh.

I do not

understand 

just why your plums

haunt us all,

but there they are,

ready for longing teeth

and tongue,

and

I wonder,

what if instead they had been in the

produce drawer? 

Would we have tasted them

at all?

Dear Reader,

An unintended consequence of poetry month? Word Raccoon has been sitting with me today while I work on…gasp…my novel! 

It’s been a minute. 

I gave a character a book to read and wow, what a difference that made. She went from scary distant to relatable. That’s a thing brought up once in a writing workshop I was in: give a character a gift. It helped.

Part of me wants to print this hot mess draft and see where we’re at. (Too far from shore, that I know.) Part of me says I should give it a bit more connective tissue before killing half a tree by printing. It was a nice change, working on it. 

I finished reading The Thursday Murder Club. (Nope, didn’t guess the multiple murders! That thing had more twists than a Twizzler. And now WR wants Twizzlers.)

This afternoon, after doing all the things I began reading North Woods by Daniel Mason, one that is popping up everywhere. Not fair to him, but I found myself napping. The book is not one to read with one eye open, and I was sleepy. I look forward to peeling it apart. Not unlike an aforementioned candy.

Someone picked up the chairs we sat out for Spring Cleanup. Then our neighbor put out two Windsor dining chairs and somehow they ended up…in our house. I am a sucker for chairs! And our kitchen chairs have seen better days. Honestly, the neighbor’s chairs are an upgrade.

There are more things to be set out, but WR says absolutely not, not by myself. Hey, I could use the beach wagon to cart them, I say. She is frowning and still looking for candy. Silly raccoon. I guess we will just wait until the weekend.

I submitted poetry to four places today. It’s cool to touch my poetry that I haven’t read for a while. Makes me want to write more, especially now that the porch lanterns have turned themselves on for that brief interval before the larger lights come on. (I have replacement bulbs for the ones that need replacing, but WR says I know I am not up to that and she will step in if need be.) 

A writer friend sent me a message today with something he thought I’d enjoy attached. He was right. He was on his way to receive a well-deserved award. Writers doing things. 

Maybe I can replace just two or three bulbs right now. It’s no award, but it will make things brighter.