From my poetry series, "The water lover"

ii. Meditation

In the early quiet my lover is dark.
Mist cloaks surrounding hills.
Thunder murmurs along the brow.
When I come to the interface
of our growing desire
     he takes me up in silver
and swallows me wholly
     in his embrace.

Profound is your holding
     and lovemaking.
I come to you weary, angry
     or anguished with loneliness & lust.
You will always lave my
     human stirrings,
cleanse my passions of corrosion,
turn my heart to stillness.

What else should I desire
but beauty, grace
     and a prevailing calm?
I have found them here
     in you, my lake.

Washed in mystery,
your love is greater than human.
You are an angel
     in the depths.

Of the hundreds of poems I have written in the past nine years, this is one of the closest to my heart. It is dated July 15, 2000. I have never published any of this series anywhere before.

I want to thank mylastsigh for sharing a poem by Mary Oliver which made me think of my favourite place in the world.

I want to thank draco_kc for some formatting advice many weeks ago, which I finally got to use.

Pieces of the puzzle

Today I received some gifts from the cosmos. One of them was insight about my difficult writing process. The other was a trove of memories, unexpectedly recovered.

Part of the reason this writing project hurts is because I feel unprepared. Forcing myself to write anyway brings the project into sharper focus. As I work I remember other things I have written—articles, essays, poems and journal entries—that fit the narrative; I recall memories I have never written down; I get ideas for chapters I have already written; I recall relevant books and articles I have read, and recognize new ideas I need to research. It's like opening a 1,000 piece puzzle, dumping the box and trying to figure out where to begin.

( The writing puzzle )

Now let me get to what happened today.

( A bird or an angel? )

A moment later, after he flew away, I heard a single cedar waxwing whistle in the woods across the river. I finished writing, picked up my notebook and walked home, tears barely contained behind my eyes.

In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard says, "I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam." That is how we learn to see things, by opening our lives to the possibility of seeing.

To that I would add that I cannot receive inspiration unless I put myself in its path, sitting by the river with a notebook open in my lap and a fountain pen in hand.

Today the robin gave me a gift of memories recovered. They have been obscured by too much unhappiness. Writing means having the courage to face it all from a place of strength so I can retrieve what is beautiful. That is part of the puzzle, too.

So is LJ, this new community of talented writers and sexy devils, encouraging me.