Driving home from band practice can be exciting, and I'm sure that all my Frost Place friends will be thrilled to learn that I finally saw a bear last night. It crossed the road in front of my car and, in the wonky shine of the headlights, bore a striking resemblance to a cartoon gorilla. However, I'd already had an exciting animal sighting just minutes before: a Scotch Highland cow (long horns, thick bangs, physique of a stuffed animal) looming out of a driveway like a hairy mailbox.
I had such a good day yesterday. The Chestnut Ridge ms is finally in groomable order, by which I mean that I've found a thematic structure. However, the ms is far too long and it's boggy and dull in places; so what I need to do now is delete poems, move the rest around, combine sections, break sections--all regular revision stuff, but much easier now that I've got a shape in my head. This work may or may not begin to happen today, but even if it doesn't, the shape exists and will persist, and that is a great happiness.
Perrhaps the animal sightings are confirmation that Chestnut Ridge is going in the proper direction.
ReplyDeleteUrsus americanus
ReplyDelete2 black bears walking upright
down route 17,
fall foliage not their concern.
Drove past them before
I realized it were
just 2 Mainers
in black cords & black hoodies,
probably hiking up
to Peaslees Gas-Stop to get
a couple of six packs
of Bud. Funny how
sun and shadow
play tricks like that.
Then there was this one black cow.
Chewing & re-chewing some hay.
Beneath a fiery red maple,
like a flaming cockscomb.
I wondered if all the other cows
were praying for a warm winter.
Also wondering, Dawn, did you choose earth, wind water, fire as your thematic approach?
Wow! Thanks for that poem, Dita! And re the thematic approach: I did use those categories, arranging them as a sort of scaffold for groups of 3-5 poems.
ReplyDelete