Wordless Wednesday

Motivation

Where I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, summer is short and sometimes fickle. So when there is a good summer full of abundance it's hard not to answer the call of the wild. This past weekend it was the blueberry picking and the kingfisher's rattle. I find so much motivation in nature.


Here's a poem by Patricia Fargnoli honoring the call. I think this week I will work on writing my own invocation poem.

Invocation

 
You came to me first as dawn hauled up on ropes
of apricot above the blackened wall of white pine.

You came from the south, from the highest places,
came down the mountain running.

You were announced by the crows, the shrill
calls of alarm from the uppermost branches.

You opened your throats in a high harsh singing.
I didn’t know what you were and rose trembling

from the deck chair, stood breathless and still
where the woods surrounded me, gathered dark

and darker as if to stall the light.
You came down, two of you: one young and red-bright

the other old, rust streaked with gray.
You pretended not to know me and lay down

beneath a small granite ledge, lay on the fallen
needles, licking light into your fur.

You came to me because I have wanted you.
You came though I had asked for nothing,

because I was full as a river at flood tide
with sadness.

You came to me, rested and then rose, first one,
then the other, and ran downhill into the morning.

You who assumed the guise of foxes, come again
as you did that morning on the mountainside.

And wasn’t that you who came last summer
as whale boiling up from the waters of Jeffries Shoal?

Wasn’t it you who came in September as wood duck
over the Stoddard marshes, who flew parallel to my car window?

Come to me again as moose invisible on the night road.
Come the way deer steal across the field at dusk

Come as raccoon, as coyote. Come carrying your burden
of blood and shadow--

come joyous and light with song, come in sleep,
in the unexpected reaches of the day. I am waiting.

Come red-tailed or black-winged; come fluked
and finned, come clawed and taloned,

renew my breath, come full of the mystery
I am only beginning to know.

Writer's Block Wednesday

Whether you are stumped on how to begin a new project or hitting the wall in your current project, we give you Writer's Block Wednesday. Each week we offer a photo as inspiration, as a prompt or as a distraction.

A to Z Challenge

For the A-Z challenge, Juliet and Regina decided to post a new and original poem every day. Today we decided to write a poem together by using an exquisite corpse. Essentially Regina wrote a line then sent a description of the line: Adjective, Noun, Verb, Adjective, Noun. Then Juliet wrote the next one not knowing what Regina wrote and so on . We decided to title the poem "Zed" meaning the letter Z. The End.


Zed

Tired hands keep writing breathing words

Pretty, slipping between the iron bars

that no longer hold back stories we have to tell

But whisper, the twisted branches have ears

Open hearts dig loam and prepare

The particles of yourself, a necessary salvage

reap a harvest, wring your hands

Bleed through until the edges burn

An end begins 

and in it all we end

A to Z Challenge

For the A-Z challenge, we decided to post a new and original poem every day. Regina builds a nest for the letter "N".

Becoming a family

The bond that binds us

is the birds

as we turn our attention

to those nest builders

we collect our findings and

build one of our own.

A to Z Challenge

For the A-Z challenge, we decided to post a new and original poem every day (yipes!)  Today, Regina tackles the letter "B" with a poem about her body. What does your body call for?



All My Body Calls
dedicated to David Whyte


All my body calls for
water rushing between rocks,
the small of wet moss that sits like
a guardian.

All my body calls for
nakedness in Lake Superior
beneath a full moon where a
beach fire waits for me.

All my body calls for
thimbleberry picking in
late August.

All my body calls for in this life
is to find wholeness in nature,
to find sanctuary beneath the
chapel dome of pine.

To find substance in a mouthful
of sea air and wing beats in Redwoods,
my feet dug into the dirt,
all my body calls.

Writer's Block Wednesday

Whether you are stumped on how to begin a new project or hitting the wall in your current project, we give you Writer's Block Wednesday. Each week we offer a photo as inspiration, as a prompt or as a distraction.

Writer's Block Wednesday

Whether you are stumped on how to begin a new project or hitting the wall in your current project, we give you Writer's Block Wednesday. Each week we offer a photo as inspiration, as a prompt or as a distraction.

Writer's Block Wednesday

Whether you are stumped on how to begin a new project or hitting the wall in your current project, we give you Writer's Block Wednesday. Each week we offer a photo as inspiration, as a prompt or as a distraction.

Writer's Block Wednesday

Whether you are stumped on how to begin a new project or hitting the wall in your current project, we give you Writer's Block Wednesday. Each week we offer a photo as inspiration, as a prompt or as a distraction.

Writer's Block Wednesday

Whether you are stumped on how to begin a new project or hitting the wall in your current project, we give you Writer's Block Wednesday. Each week we offer a photo as inspiration, as a prompt or as a distraction.

Writer's Block Wednesday

Whether you are stumped on how to begin a new project or hitting the wall in your current project, we give you Writer's Block Wednesday. Each week we offer a photo as inspiration, as a prompt or as a distraction.

Living a Writer's Life

You know one. One of those writers who confidently says, "I write every day." There are famous authors who swear that writing every day got them to the top. I've heard it at conferences, critique groups and most recently while hanging out with some friends at a pub. And if you are one of those writer's let me be the first to commend you.

But let's be real. I pledge to myself that I will write every day and I fail 98% of the time. Lately my journal is the only writing getting any action and it's not daily, no matter how I try. And it's not a lack of discipline, it's really more the choices I make.

While attending a poetry reading with Robert Haight, he said that at first he did everything to be a writer, writing every day, hanging out in coffee shops, even taking up smoking. But it wasn't until he decided that he wanted live a life of poetry instead of being a poet that he was able to write. And when I heard that I felt so inspired.

Yes, I do know that writer who writes every day. In fact, he told me that even though he may not write the best material every day, he will out work anyone. And yes, I still find myself a tad bit jealous that he has the "writer's" life. And I could stay up until 2 am or get up at 2am and start writing.

 But for now I am choosing to live. And in living I am writing poetry. It's there in the face of my little girl as I kiss her goodnight. It's even in the pile of dishes in the sink. And in the dog's dish and the icicles hanging from my husband's wetsuit as he comes in from winter surfing and in the swish of my skis and crunch of the snow.

 And I hope that when I do make the choice to write religiously again, all that life will become poetry on the page.

Writer's Block Wednesday

Whether you are stumped on how to begin a new project or hitting the wall in your current project, we give you Writer's Block Wednesday. Each week we offer a photo as inspiration, as a prompt or as a distraction.

Yes, Regina, there is a muse

A few weeks ago I was having a discussion about the muse. Someone told a story about a friend that believed her muse was her son's green parakeet. Even after the bird met it's demise, the woman froze the carcass and kept it for several years, afraid that disposing of it would cause the loss of her muse.

I could relate(not necessarily to freezing a pet). As a writer I certainly have quirks about what has to be on my desk, in my writing space and playing on my Ipod before I can write. At one point I had an aversion to blue pens convinced that blue ink would thwart my muse.

It's easy to blame the muse for the inability to produce work. And I am guilty of this as well.

But with our family's recent move to the Upper Pennisula of Michigan where I grew up, it seems I finally have no more excuses. Surrounded by nature and living life at a slower pace, I have been forced to own up to my muse.

Maybe it is the awareness of being in a grove of pines, the way the sunlight seeps into the moss carpet and reflects off the top of a mushroom cap.  Maybe it's the cascade of snowflakes that catch in my eyelashes or the crackle of twig snaps beneath my boots as I follow a chickadee call.

I have to believe that my muse has always been with me. But there is something here in the country that helps her more than survive.

So I have to ask, do you believe? Where do you find your muse? Does your muse thrive in certain conditions?

First Post: Carrot Juice and Coffee

The table is set and I am wondering who will arrive to partake. I would serve, of course, carrot juice.
-Regina Gort

What? I haven't even had my coffee yet.
-Juliet Bond

Welcome to our new writing blog!  We hope you will join us on this new venture, that you will share laughs, triumphs and rejection letters. That you might dust off your muse and rediscover what inspires you to write, live and love.

More than likely there will be poetry.

And book reviews and interviews.

Revelations and prompts.

But most of all the growth of a relationship with our muses, a little bit country and a little bit city.

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

-William Stafford

With warmth and welcome and a special toast to something new;

Load up the juicer!

-Regina

Nuh huh.  (Slurp.)  I'll stick with my non-fat latte.

-Juliet

Bring your own favorite beverage, and join us for a bit of nourishment.

Love, Us