Breathing Life into Ideas

Though my sabbatical doesn't officially begin until August, I've already been jotting down notes when an idea occurs to me, and writing poems and short essays--very rough first drafts of both--to not lose the germ when it strikes. For the first time in my life, I'm taking the desire to be a writer seriously. I'm being protective of my writing time. I write.

This is the most recent poem. It came about after an intense, overpowering need to sketch what was swirling in my head. That sketch has been right in front of me on my desk for weeks, helping me get to this:

I dreamed of you during the night, again, the fourth night in a row, 

and you were walking, again, as if you’d never not walked.

I remember awakening in the darkness, smiling at the notion

of you showing me where you are now, your legs working fine,

no MS keeping you prisoner on the burgundy leather love seat,

where you sat through your days then through your nights,

as if roots had somehow sprouted, burrowing down into the cushions,

then past the floorboards beneath, anchoring firmly

into the moist, black soil of the crawl space under the house,

as if your useless legs had fused together to form a thick trunk,

from which the crown above swayed gently under the weight

of the fruits you cradled, fruits ripe with words you devoured,

savoring the sweet escape from that couch, if just in your mind,

if just for an hour, until fatigue forced your eyes to close

and you’d sleep, dreaming, walking as if you’d never not walked.

The title eludes me, but I've learned to be patient and wait. It will reveal itself when it's ready.