My life is a mess of possibilities. Every good thing I’ve...
My life is a mess of possibilities. Every good thing I’ve ever poured myself into has reappeared before me this year as if to show me the different roads I must choose from.
Boats, music, poetry and family.
I want them all, but I’ve never been able to keep them all in the air at once. And maybe it is better that way, as each love is distilled with the urgency that demands I give in when I am called.
Yesterday I spent the day helping a friend pour a huge slab of concrete (two big trucks worth of cement), us in the usual tattered Carharts and rubber boots, wading atop the rebar in a wet gray mix, working it into every crevice before smoothing the whole thing over, again and again. It was a good day of work, felt in the body, the result tangible before. I never once thought about getting on the computer. How different that is from my former self of the past several years, hungry for any connection the internet had to offer. And then, late in the day I get online and find a poem of mine feature on Verse Daily. I had waited for that in the past, but of course it only happened after I was done waiting. After I had turned away. So thanks, Universe, for once again speaking clearly and giving me something to consider. (Thanks also to all the friends who have said nice things and shared the poem on Facebook.)
Because I have been so torn this year, between all my loves (and vices) I never made much of a deal of my new chapbook, The End of the Folded Map, but I’m here now, and I have this to say: I’m proud of the collection in a way I haven’t been with my previous two chapbooks. I think it holds my strongest work to date and the folks at Codhill did a lovely job putting it together. I don’t think it should cost as much as it does, but if you can afford it check it out. And if you can’t, drop me a line and I will find a way to make it cheaper. You can find it on Amazon, Borders, through SUNY Press and at Open Books in Seattle.
Concrete. Poems.
And now I’m back to the chisel. And tonight my band plays a great pub in town that over looks Puget Sound. And River turns two on Sunday, which means I will have more to say then.
