Not quite my yard, but in the Waldron Fen, a preserved natural area
across the street from our Michigan Place.
---Mist in the trees, and soiled water and grass cuttings splotch
The driveway,
afternoon starting to bulk up in the west
A couple of hours down the road:
Strange how the light hubs out and wheels
concentrically back and forth
After a rain, as though the seen world
Quavered from a water bead
swung from a grass blade:
The past is never the past:
it lies like a long tongue
We walk down into the moist mouth of the future, where new teeth
Nod like new stars around us,
And winds that itch us, and plague our ears,
sound curiously like the old songs.
Charles Wright from Zone Journals, FSG, 1988
This is the very first section of Zone Journals by our new poet laureate, Charles Wright. I have written about it before and am thinking of it as a model for something I would like to do on a regular basis while the sun is up. Someone I know writes every day from 8 a.m. to noon. I'm thinking of something more on the order of half an hour. . . and outdoors, or on the porch, weather permitting. I should be able to start on August first; wish me luck!!!
In the Zone Journal passage above notice the interesting language, careful observations and comparisons. I hope to stretch myself a little with the exercise. I do like the way the lines are laced across the page, but I have a little quibble about the use of only one period (at the end) but still beginning each new line with a capital letter. That slowed me down a little. If I had to choose, I would either put in the periods or slow down on the initial capitals.
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