This poem is so much about my focus for the year, to write poetry more consistently, to not let the minutiae of the day confound my attempt to write.

So, yesterday morning, I wrote about wanting to write.

The poem landed in a nice-ish spot, with themes carried along, enough metaphor to buoy my spirit, and a clear enough meaning to be had without a hard read.

I really like the “Here and There” lines and how they balance the poem. They came later in the write, the “started Here to get just There–” line landing first on the page, the line “Here and There” coming only after I abandoned the first drafts ending.

That was hard to do. I get enamored of certain lines and ideas in my poems. I want to hold onto them believing they are the centerpiece of the poem.

Here’s where sitting with a poem for a while, drafting multiple versions, allowing myself to actually believe in alternate versions, where that process really works.

Here is one of those early drafts of the last two stanzas of the ending:

but on my way forgot 
what metaphors will do 
when pushed–
and when distraction 
is shrouded only 
inches under snow, 
and, or, underground,


and when intention, 
much as water,
works soundless 
to have life grow,
or freeze,
and then,
gone wild, 
impound.

I liked the sounds here. I eventually didn’t like how it landed though.

Coming back to the theme of farming the rows of verse, tilling them, and ultimately that so much exists between these rows, between the lines.

One way that I judge one of my own poems is the sense I get that there is more there than even I recognize, that a deeper read will unearth suggestions of a different life, a wild life, as mentioned here at the end.

I often read other poetry to get “in the mood” so to speak to write. I’ve started a routine, hopefully soon a habit, to write out a poem I admire longhand in my daily pages.

Yesterday, just before I began to write, I wrote out “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry. here you can hear Berry read his own poem.

My favorite line:

I come into the peace of still water.

My wife and I have a dream to own a place on a lake. So much of this dream appeals to me. A place for family to gather. A place for ourselves and our kids to get away for a weekend, for a week. For respite. For renewal.

The trouble is that some dreams cost quite a bit of cash.

My first take is this: you cannot take it with you.

My other take is: I already have all that I need.

And for the Bots–text only version of the poem:

Here and There

If I am going to write a poem 
today, 
before the ground freezes again 
tonight,
I’d best be at it, 

pushing my pencil as a plow 
across this lined page 
marked in white rows with blue 
guide lines to stay between, 
rocks and roots, 
ice and snow, 
and ideas soon upturned, 

and looking back,
I note, 
the lines have all been crossed 
so many times, 
as any line laid down will, 
and everywhere I’ve tagged
my name with my graffiti hand,

but there I’ve gone again, 
as I often do, 
started Here to get just There–

but on my way forgot 
what metaphors will do 
when pushed–

and when distraction 
is shrouded only 
inches under snow 
and underground–

and when intention, 
much as water,
works soundlessly 
to help life grow–

regardless–
words will be wild,
or buried, or–
as suggested 
Here and There–

between.