Reading and Writing

 Covid seems to diminish as Spring begins to take hold. I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel in ways that I have not imagined light. I am reading an essay every so often from Owning it All by William Kittredge, and Erosion by Terry Tempest Williams . They are of the land and speak of it eloquently from different times. Speaking of light my poetry is changing which is always fun and a challenge. After writing most of my life it is trusting in the birth of the unexpected. I write a lot about Jonah from the myth of Jonah and the Whale. The latest poem was a real surprise. My muse rouses me at night with a word or a phrase and leaves it to me to roll over or get up and write. So hear it is:

Not Looking at the Whales Dork

 

The man in the public shower

Looked like a whale breeching, over

And over. He was a whale, what type

I’m not sure. Truth be told, his tattoo

From toe to neck, undulated me to believe

That Jonah’s head peeked out of a substantial

Opening

Before, the infamous Nineveh vomiting.

 

Staring in a shower is way wrong,

If straight on. A glance or a turn

Is permissible, but one is not to

Take in the whole body. Think

Ray Bradbury, with just one illustration.

 

I was like a harpoonist, clutching

A bar of Ivory soap. The man

In the public shower turned off

The continual water as I dove

Into increased spray. He followed

The tide of the drain  

To the mustard colored exit.

I trust the word the muse sends me.