The Rippling Light Overhead

Hello Writers,

I’m sitting at a quiet desk in the Denver Public Library—first time here!—and I just wrote a poem. The first poem I’ve written in a long time.

The poem was inspired by one of you! Sort of. A poet ❤️ who reached out wondering if I knew any professional poets who could provide guidance on a project. It got me remembering how I abandoned my own poetic efforts over a decade ago. I discovered a knack for poetry back in university, and after graduation I continued scratching out little poems on little scraps of paper, the better ones typed out, edited, saved in forgotten files somewhere in the deep dark regions of the cloud. I kept those efforts up for a few years, and then I stopped. It wasn’t a conscious choice. Poetry writing got replaced by other writing. Or, more likely, by other areas of life that took over, since the drop-off happened in the prime of my working-mother years. I’ve been thinking about those last poems I wrote. I remember them, but not well enough to reproduce them.

Anyway, I came to the Denver library today. I’ve been dedicating Mondays1 to creative renewal efforts (more on that in a future letter). So, here I am. I brought my laptop in case I felt like writing (no pressure to produce on creative renewal days!) and I walked by a display of poetry books and flipped through a few. Then as I wandered, a silly little poem landed. So I brought out my laptop and wrote it down.

When I Was Young

When I was young
I was good at writing poems.
I gave up all that glory
for the pursuit of practicality.
It did not work out.
So, why not write poems?

I didn’t say it was a good poem! Actually, I have no interest in judgement about the poem’s quality—mine or anyone else’s. Quality is not the point. Inspiration is.

As I wrote that poem down, a whole writing project concept flooded into my mind. A whole collection of poems based on the theme of midlife questioning.

I started writing a second poem immediately after writing that first one. The second poem is based on the question: Will the muse forgive me? (for abandoning her.) It’s not done yet. But I like the way it is shaping up. Here’s the first draft:

Will You Forgive Me?

Forgotten on the forest floor, or
on the bottom of a creek bed
under the caressing current–
rippling light overhead–
where I dropped you–sploosh!–like a wish off the boardwalk
where the inlet met the burbling mouth of a stream.
You’d plunked the wavering image of a reddening, wriggling body
in my mind. A fish—
a salmon swimming upstream—
something to do with all those eggs,
the eggs being art,
the current being resistance—I forget.

Did you call to me or wave or even wish,
or only watch, and accept my wandering off
from you–
my muse–
while I formed
in my mind
the last lines,
the last poem
I ever wrote.
Then forgot.

The trick will be to let my little poetry project go, and stay focused on the task at hand, which is finishing my bookstore memoir. I’m not a poet. At least not this year.

But at least my creative renewal days seem to be working. Woohoo! Thank you for the poetic inspiration, You Poet! May the inspiration trickle through me and through this letter to any other writer who needs it today.

Write a poem that asks or answers a question from midlife—or whatever stage of life you happen to be in.

Go have fun!

xoxo Danica