Incomplete projects
mock my commitment
make a fool of me to myself
keep me from moving forward.
How many articles and books
lie, embryonic, in my files?
Ideas barely developed
Concepts without details
Kernels that never get to pop.
In the meantime, I tidy obsessively
-Oh, no, not my files-that might be productive!
Instead, it’s closets, the dishes, the garden,
An unintentional embrace of my own
Squirrelly nature. Like the furry rodents,
I gather acorns but never enough
To make a stew, and then I’m off
to the Next Big Thing.
Details get me stuck.
How to make this story flow, this idea slip smoothly
into reader awareness?
I’m not afraid of work,
but there are times the work happens in the back of the mind
while the hands are busy making pie crust, weeding the lettuce,
tidying the cupboard
gathering acorns and not thinking about writing.
Inevitably, the time comes
when back of mind no longer serves,
and then it is time to write
words on page
ideas in concrete form.
It is time to shape something
in the space opened by tidying,
words where none were seen before.
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