A November Recap With a Poem

National Novel Writing Month was very interesting for me. I immersed myself in writing poems and short stories, only in my spare time, but in almost every moment of that time. In the process, I learned to listen to and express my inner wisdom.

In the end, the amount of that type of writing that accumulated was impressive. I wrote 54 poems, some of them only part or short, and four short stories.

In the next while I will go through the poems and short stories and make revisions. I plan to choose some of the poems and the short stories and compile them into a collection that I can share. Perhaps the wisdom I found will be of benefit to others as well.

In the meantime, I offer this poem. It is a poem about one of my family’s dogs, written in the middle of writing all the other poems. Much can be learned from the other creatures that we humans share this earth with. Perhaps this is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves as the outer world that we know changes so rapidly: look to the non-human creatures and learn from them. They know things our busy thinking brains don't show us.

Ringo
Our dog
A most precious soul
Sharing with us
This time and place

His eyes
Speak volumes
A knowing
Beyond words
Bigger than words
His demeanour
Softens
The hardest heart
Brings a smile
To the painfully
Self-conscious

Live
He tells us
Right now
Soak in the sun
When it shines
Smell every scent
On your path
Taste every morsel
You find
Look into the eyes
Of those who love you
Shake off the little things
When you can

As his joints fail
Muscles weaken
Cold and damp
Slow him down
He tells us
Live
Right now
In this moment
Be who you are
Be present
And love
Be love

Looking to My Month of Writing: November

November is approaching. It is the month of the year that I count on being able to write, using the structure of nanowrimo.org. NaNoWriMo is intended for novel writing. It has been used successfully by many people to get into the flow of writing and accomplish a large chunk of writing in a short time.

This year I am really only using NaNoWriMo to give me the structure to find time to write. I won’t be writing large numbers of words. I don’t expect to write a novel. But I do expect to do what I always do in November: use every spare moment for writing.

Despite having no plot or characters, this year’s planning feels much like other years. I feel myself getting into the “space” that is particular to my writing month. I am finding my way to the place where I can be open to my inner muse. This process is something that is always hard to put into words, but I can say some about it. One thing I have focused on is my breathing, the kind of deep breaths that allow me to connect to the still place inside me, the place that connects with the life of all beings. I also have a list of ideas that I can imagine might be the basis for poems. I expect to write poetry, and maybe a short story or longer story. But other than breathing and a list of ideas, I have no other concrete preparations. This will be a month of listening to my inner wisdom and creativity rather than counting on word following word to generate flow.

I try to live in the moment as much as I can these days, but I am looking forward to seeing what comes of a month of this kind of writing.

Poem: Human Canary

Leaden skies
Heavy and sullen
Pin me to
This dying earth
An indifferent
Atmosphere
Holds me down

Climate-induced
Depression
Leaves me longing
For crisp autumn inhalations
Invigorating my steps
A gentle October sun
Illuminating the gold-veined leaves
That shine a promise
Of a vibrant spring to come

Pressed to this Earth
She, I, my body
Are one
As arthritis pains
Slow my joyous run
To a walk
Tears no longer soothe
My dry eyes
Hot flashes
Burn through me
Then leave a chill
My skin sun-attacked
No longer soothed by its warmth

I’m the canary in the coalmine
Sensing the change
The dying
My depression jolted
By agony
My tender heart
Pierced by death pangs

My love for this earth
Her creatures
Her plants
Her crazy humans
Keeps me present
This canary must live
Bear witness in my poetry
And bid farewell to
Our physical presence

Poem: Evolution

Earth has become
My alien
Home
More and more
Unrecognizable.
These clouds
An ever changing skyscape
I do not know.
This air
I did not breathe
Heavy and moist.
My Canadian garden
Now a tropical jungle
Plants tall and lush.

My rhythms
Learned from earth
As I grew
Have been replaced
Rhythms become randomness
What should remain
Goes
What once would go
Stays
Confusion abounds

In this time
I, too,
Must change
Release my grip
On routines and rhythms
Leave expectations
To slip through my fingers
Breathe deep
Down into the vastness
Of my Soul
See through
All these failing structures
Find the webs
That hold us

I, myself,
Am an alien
To my younger self
The landscape of my personhood
Barely recognizable
My rhythms no longer imposed
My structures unreliable
My evolution is
A work in progress
Never solitary
As Earth
I
You
We
Move on

Poetry: Sitting in the Park

Sometimes a poem can mark a moment in time. On Sept 12 I was sitting in the park while the kids in my care played joyfully. I was free to pull out my notebook and take note of the moment.


Last night
As I walked
Crickets sang
A cool weather song
Today
Remnants of a cool breeze
Caress me
While a hot sun
Heats my back
Cicadas hum
High in the trees
While traffic roars past
Relentless waves
Of noise pollution
Before me an idyllic scene
Sunny, green, vibrant
Behind me that roar
A strong reminder
Earth’s tolerance
Of harm upon harm
Will end

An Update: Poetry

An update is long overdue. My writing has changed and I feel like I, myself, have changed.

I stopped working on my novel, A Beautiful End. My life is very busy, so novel revisions are difficult to fit in. But I didn’t stop writing. I wrote more poems. And in the process I have become more confident in my poetry writing and more ready to share some poems.  I recognize that poetry writing is an important part of my life and every bit as valid as novel writing.

I have looked back on my novel writing and pondered on my lack of desire to pursue revisions. In my last two novels I’ve tried to imagine what it might be like to live in the near future of ongoing climate changes. My novels consider a possible future that is constantly changing. And despite my willingness to address these possibilities head-on, changes are happening more rapidly than I could imagine. It seems like no amounts of revision could fit my novel in its entirety to a more likely reality than I had imagined.

In my poetry, I live in the present, stopping only to consider how future possibilities impact us right now. This is how I am living my life right now: in the moment, as much as I can.

In light of that, it is my intention to post more poems on my blog. For me, poetry writing is a deeply personal process, and it doesn’t allow for frivolity. In other words, my poems come from my heart and from my inner wisdom.

Many of my poems reflect my process of learning how to live in a world that is in so much change. They are particularly about learning how to accept the acceleration in changes to our planet that can no longer be halted.

I hope you enjoy my poems. I hope they touch your heart and in some small way help you to find your own way in these troubling times.

*  *  *

For today, I wish to share a little poem I jotted down while in the park. I have promised myself to explore the concept of death, that it might not be limited to the big scary picture of a human suffering on a death bed. 

A Fleeting Visit

An insect lit down
On my arm
Revealed its delicate beauty
Yellow-jointed brown legs
Transparent veined wings
Compound eyes
Then flitted away
A death to me
Such a fleeting visit
Here and gone

A Short Update on "A Beautiful End"

I’ve been eager to post an update on my progress with my novel, A Beautiful End. I started a blog post last October, just before the start of the 2017 month of writing with nanowrimo.org, but life was too busy. November started and I got on with the task of writing that I had assigned myself. December was it’s usual self, monopolized by things Christmas. In January I returned to writing, to finish November’s task. It is done, and now the blog post is finally being written.

I veered away from the expectations of NaNoWriMo this past November. The idea is to write a new novel and to just write like crazy and never look back until the month is over. It is a very effective way to get a big chunk of writing done and to fall into the creative flow. But this time I wrote slowly and thoughtfully. I rewrote the first part of A Beautiful End. This was a new experience for me, to write the same story over again. From my perspective, it was a great success! I wrote a better story, even though the plot was essentially the same, and I improved my writing ability as I went along. It was just the right thing for me.

Next steps include doing revisions on this first part, based on anything I find and then based on feedback from readers. I’m looking forward to the moment when I can present my novel to the world as a finished project!