Wide awake in Allentown.  What the hell does that mean?  It means everything we believed to be strong and secure can change in a heartbeat.  Sometimes our anchor is dislodged by an outside force, but… but!  We have the power to take up our own anchor and head for new waters. It’s hope.

We are our own being. We are the creators, destroyers, and creators of our own life.  That includes our art, be it poetry, a novel, restoration of a classic automobile, pencil sketches, photography we made on a camera phone. We are the creators, destroyers, and creators of it all.  And we do not make art every day.  Most days we exhale carbon dioxide, we speak questions, look on others with hard filters, our heart beats longings, and we have no idea what the path ahead looks like.  Most days we are just one hour at a time, because it’s all we can do, and that is a noble thing, just getting through our current trajectory.  I love to listen to people speak about their current trajectory.  I have no wish to point them to some “better” way because only they know their way.  So many stories standing out there in the sand, written and unwritten by the tide, or on the bow of a ship or the fin of a dolphin. Seen, gone.  Meaningful to them and them alone.  They carry their lives on their faces, in their dented cars, dented faces, wrinkled brows,  unknown stories, and we judge them at first sight.  Their story is theirs, and my reaction to them is mine.

Today I am interested in sorting seeds. What have I written so far that is ready, what is written that needs attention, food, watering, growth?  What have I written that needs to be put away, compost for better things?  Today I am interested in truth, the ivies that follow me from a garden I planted in my past. If I could plant a seed today, what would I want it to yield?  This is what I want to know, today.  And that is all.