19 November 2018:
I read Carl Phillips with a cup of French Press coffee this morning. I note his poem, “Revolver,” for its strong, brief musicality—scribbling blue ink in the margins.
A short poem, half a page and slender, it moves a long in its inevitable way. And by inevitable, I mean natural. I mean—of its own volition. Without one word misplaced or misused.
In the corner of my office window, the night’s frozen condensation slowly melts, while behind it all, the sun fills the parking lot. It’s an image of summer, almost, with the birds still around, the spruce and cedar green as ever.
I know November is coming to an end, leading in its way to another new year. I continue to rise early, when I can, and keep the season within a frame. I turn the pages, press the coffee. I build a new world across another empty page.
Carl Phillips, he says, “how what we were / can become unrecognizable to what we are…”
Like a season. Like high school. Like this whole game of growing older.
The best I can do at guessing, at looking in the rear-view, is to point and say: there everything was, there I was, and now, here’s an empty parking lot slowly filling up with snow.
Writing from Here 