energized

i don't know how to generate energy except to expend it.

so we sat around and spoke for a half-hour on two poems, which the poets present discussed the kernel that led to the stalk, that flowered into the corn we sat enjoying.

laughter abounds.

it's a good crowd and mostly i just sit and watch. i have little to add, i need add little. things take on a life of their own many times if we just believe.

so we'll be joining in and doing a poetry reading in july, it seems. sounds good to me.

i'll just show up, the pressure won't be on me to make anything happen, it can't. i can't do any more than just show up.

and fortunately, it's on a tuesday. the day i'm always off. :)

but tonight, as we stood in the crisp cold, the "aftermeeting" as one of the poets walking to her car called it, i felt revived. as if i'd never been tired and didn't know what tired was.

this, i'm told, is what happens when you're doing what you are supposed to be doing.

i keep going back to measure my progress, to look at the previous marks on the wall where i once stood as tall as i could, and how those same lines cower before me now. i've grown, it seems. and that pleases me. because i had set a course some time back, i had faced in a particular direction and not until arriving at the location do you know if your directions are correct.

only, i've got no directions. and this, is confirmed by those i trust. that the road worth taking is like slogging through a forest feeling lost most of the time.

at least my feeling capacity is rightly attuned. i feel lost most of the time.

that is some comfort.

that those i look to for counsel and guidance have themselves been very lost for most of their journey, comforts me. and only now in evaluating the literature criticizing poets who have come and gone before do i see the varyance. the difference between them and us, only i can't say it here as i wish i could. let me only say this.

critics see what is. they measure by the established standards.
artists see what can be. their sight is entirely other than the established.

that is the pivotal conclusion of this semester.

one kind poet was telling me the meaning of one of my poems, how it became something. and i said,

that really has nothing to do with me. my job is to write it down.

that, kids, is my only job.

i must remember this.

writing has always been the talisman for my journey. the way of discovery for me. and so it continues to be.

for that, i am grateful.

and for the unknown poets, who are known only by me or not even by me, i say,

write. live in obscurity. labor in obscurity. there are treasures there.