September mornings
Posted on | September 23, 2007 |
Sometimes there are other things. Mornings of sleeping in an extra half hour instead of getting up and dragging myself to the keyboard in the pre-dawn chill, because my days already feel like the fragile worn fabric of a quilt. The first flu of the season has me bleary eyed and achy. I’d whimper, but the afternoons with skies all blue and full of tatters, make me too happy.
The weather has been perfect. The leaves falling, every day more, until the ground has become a kaleidoscope of red and yellow. Days are filled with small things that make me be right here. Pomegranates are in season. The wood is stacked, cords deep, and our new wood stove arrived; fire-engine red, tucked into a corner in the dining room. Apples are tangy and sweet now, and on the tree beyond the kitchen window they look like the burnished red beads on some old woman’s necklace. The air’s still sweet and noisy with the end of summer: crickets at night, and the last cut of hay, but there is a bite to the mornings.
Sometimes I want fragments. Short phrases. Words in the loop of a poem; the dangling thought of an elipsis; the wanton lust of the run-on. Sometimes I can’t say things all the way, the way they are. Instead, the feeling is simply there, welling up. Like woodsmoke in the air, or the red streak of the tanager. This week I want to return to something I did last September. A poem a day. A morning poem. Whatever words come to mind to paint the colored arc of soul and dreams across the page. Tomorrow, first thing, with a steaming mug and the fog rising, I’ll scatter careless armfuls of words like autumn leaves. Will you join me?
Comments
10 Responses to “September mornings”
Leave a Reply
September 23rd, 2007 @ 11:39 pm
I love this idea and have been feeling the same, in regards to “the feeling is simply there”. I would love to join you in a poem a day.
September 24th, 2007 @ 2:09 am
Christina, I sat and read this 3x over, just reveling in it. It will carry me a long way.
September 24th, 2007 @ 7:35 am
So happy I came across this, this morning. Your writing lifts my heart and soul. I am not much of a writer, however I cant wait to read here every morning.
September 24th, 2007 @ 9:12 am
Yes. I would love to join you. Poetry’s been calling to me lately. Been so long since I’ve written in that arena, which I guess makes it sound like sport, which to me, it so totally isn’t. Thank you very kindly for the inspiration. I like the way you say things, and it makes me want to get into the meat of the day like you do.
Melissa
September 24th, 2007 @ 10:35 pm
Oh, Christina. I so want to join you. I need to! And I want to! I don’t know how, but I can sure try.
I love the wideness that September brings. Here we are still in summer’s steamy grip, but I love that *somewhere* it is truly autumn.
September 25th, 2007 @ 5:31 am
Living in south Florida I don’t experience seasons…reading your blog always takes me back to when I lived up north and loved all the seasons, especially autumn. Back to simpler times and good memories. Thanks for that! I enjoy your writing so.
September 25th, 2007 @ 10:11 am
Actually, this is lovely; I have opted to start a poem a day and keep it more regular, keep it recorded and focus so much more. I have a second blog, one where I look at words on the page more: www.aviewfromthewayhere.blogspot.com And of course, I am in. First poem was yesterday’s: about this first cold of the season. I will post it today.
September 27th, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
I am posting poems too. I love this idea and it has inspired me throughout the past year. Thank you!
September 27th, 2007 @ 10:56 pm
Your writing is so soft and observant and not overloaded with cliches or too many metaphors. The view of a child who will grow and change is charming. When I look at my 35 year old son, muscular and tall, and now adoring his own five year old child, I remember the time he won an award in a baby contest in Fiji but the prize dress was too small for him!
w.
September 29th, 2007 @ 8:01 am
Just wanted to say that your prompt to join you in this last September (and how could that possibly have been a year already?!) planted the seed…which flowered again last Spring (during NaPoWriMo)…but really blossomed last month when I chose to return to the daily poem on August 1. I don’t write one every single day, but most…and I truly miss it when I skip it. It’s become a sort of practice. So I just wanted to say THANK YOU for planting that daily poem seed a year ago. xoxo