penity

three pennies more i found. and noticed in the heading of blog it says, "richly penniless" suppose i'll have to change that now. i'm packin' eleven pennies. i've started a collection to see with my eyes what i find this year. pennies have become my tangible symbols of joy.

i neglected to mention in yesterday's post that my girl rescued a diminutive cricket. so small it looked to me like a grain of pepper. she kept going, aww. but i could only think, he's cute now. but in a few months, you'll be lunging for that cricket and hear the crunch of his tiny exoskeleton and lift thy foot simultaneously leaking an ewww, as you see the assorted legs and white creamy entrails of said cricket on your shoe. he's cute now. just give him a few months.

i think the woodpecker and God are conspiring to keep me out doors. the woodpecker says to God, hide me when she comes. and God does. i can't find the woodpecker anywhere. but i am noisy. so i send my little apache out and watch the woodpecker circle behind the tree and turn his curious eye in her direction to see if she is coming. he gets away faster than she can apprehend him. we kept this up all day yesterday. the oaks look like they are bleeding. their interior bark is red. i'm not sure if they'll survive this encounter.

i'm out of sorts again. so long i'd prayed for poets, that now when i speak with them and we write poetry and it is all intermingled and overwhelming joyous, i hardly know what to do. it is too good. i guess it is the goodness that gets me. i'm not used to it. i'm not used to such gracious people, such wondrous company. i'm not used to it at all. but here it is. and they are creating works that bless my soul. my work is improving by being around them.

in julia cameron's artist's way, i had read about the master painters of old and she asked, what did they do? they painted each other. at lunch. at play. their masterpieces were living portraits of their community.

while there is no one to really say that about our poetry circle, it does feel that way to me. there are works being created even now which astound me. the lining up of so many letters and crafting phrases and honing imagery with such power that i am often left undone.

it is not only the sincerity of the work, it is that these are my people. this is my tribe. my clan. my kinsmen. i guess that is the scariest part. i have looked so long for my inklings and here they are. i just hadn't known i would be so awestruck when they arrived. i hadn't realized i would be so indebted to their collective brilliance.

art is a living thing. poetry is a craft of emotion and precision. i've always heard of the assumed persona for poetry and perhaps if i did write that way it would be less grueling emotionally for me. but i don't. i don't know how.

so either this is the right way for me to be, or i've got it all completely wrong. i keep going with the former because the latter devalues everything i have come to understand as being who i am. i cannot let go of what i have fought so hard to realize. for better or worse, i am a poet. for right or wrong, i reckon with poets as living breathing beings. may the blessing of God be on our work and in our fellowship, so sweet it is.

if you could only read the words i read. you'd understand. i cannot convey how gifted these poets are, perhaps someday the world will realize it. and i will have had a moment in their bright company. they are my inklings and i bless God for them.