april's experiments

A week of travel, a few days in California, and then a few days in Oregon. This trip was about seeing family, a new baby, and the time moved too swiftly; but touching skin to skin, the tactile memory remains.

The return to Denver meant an immediate birthday party, and grocery shopping for fresh produce at Sprouts. We brought back a heavy bag of bulk items that cost half as much in OR as they do in CO. We oddly stock our dry goods pantry from another state!

Instead of January being the month of promises, goals set, and diets begun, April seems a month of new beginnings . . . we are planning to buy a small house, to set down semi-permanent roots in Denver.  And after a week of traveling, drinking too much coffee and eating scones from the Flying J truck stop . . . it is time to consider what changes the body demands.

I am trying to eat right, I am trying to walk more, I am trying to submit poetry . . . I am experimenting with floor plans and furniture layout and envisioning a yard filled with native plants.

And with this season of change and experimentation comes the month of poetry.

I stopped at the downtown library this morning, 45 minutes on the meter, and found poetry spotlighted both downstairs and up, and a rash of new streamlined books of poetry. They weren’t hiding in the stacks, but were displayed prominently for everyone to see. If you were unfamiliar with poetry, you might pick up one of the books just to peek at the mystery between the covers. Hopefully you'd be pulled in and held.

Unable to resist, I brought a few books home from the library: Linda Bierds  / Roget’s Illusion; W. S. Merwin’s  / The Moon Before Morning; Charles Wright / Caribou; Martha Collins / Day Unto Day; and finally, William Stafford / Sound of the Ax. 

I may skim through these books or read them through, but they’re here beside me, like old friends hoping for a long conversation.

I am listening to a conversation between the poets . . .

Linda:
You write for burnt glass

William:
When it’s your own pain you notice it

Martha:
Centered, surrounded by pines, one could forget the uncentered world

Charles:
Invisible, inaudible things, always something to hanker for

W. S.:
You with your many questions, I have none

William:
I will follow my experiments, even if they don’t converge with needs


April, a month of change, the temperatures unpredictable, the gardens imaginary, our poetry less weighted with the darkness of winter. There is something stirring just beneath the surface. I will read the poets for clues to this stirring. And like William, I too will follow my experiments. 

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