There’s a force-field around me, when I write, that’s disturbed by the presence of someone else who’s close enough to disturb it with his own energy.
Wayne just brought me a lovely cup of tea—and even went upstairs to retrieve my journal and pen from my writing room—but then asked if it would be okay, and plunked down on the bed next to where I’m sitting up, propped against my pillows, ready to receive whatever words and ideas enter the airspace around me.
As the air traffic controller, I need to make sure that no other person’s energy impinges on the space required by the airplane of my thoughts—or maybe it’s more like a hot-air balloon of my thoughts—to fly unimpeded.
(It was okay. He fell asleep.)
I can hear the sound of the propane as it’s ignited to power the balloon, and feel the upward surge of the balloon as the air heats up and the gondola I’m riding in ascends, held tight by the guy-ropes—and the landscape below me grows smaller and smaller in scale (have I said that correctly?).
As everything is miniaturized—the houses and the roads, the rivers and trees, while I float above it all in a god-like way—I’m suddenly able to see the whole of creation. I’m suddenly possessed of perspective.
That’s how it is when a poem enters into a writer’s force-field, shedding god-light on the everyday things that all too often go unnoticed. Seeing the secret connections we can’t see because we’re standing too close to perceive them.
In the same way, hearing the sounds that swirl through the air, the sounds that we usually ignore or simply can’t hear.
The afterlife of all the words ever spoken.
The after-image of every memory, all the sweetness and all the horrors, laid down and preserved in all the nervous systems of every sentient being who ever lived, both humans and animals and, it would seem now, even plants (which also feel and remember).
I’ve always said that my primary skill as a writer is that I’m a good antenna. But it’s frightening to me now to think about all the signals, visual and aural, that might come through when I’m feeling most receptive—and most vulnerable.
Being a poet isn’t much different, I think, from being mad (in the oldest sense of that word), except that the poet (presumably, hopefully!) knows how to filter all the data coming in, and knows how to focus on one small part of it at a time—and how to write one poem at a time.
I feel glad, grateful, and relieved every time I manage to receive and arrange the words that enter my airspace from that mysterious place where poems are born.
I’ve been working on that poem that wandered into my airspace yesterday. I like it a lot and I’d like to share it here. But I also want to submit it to a magazine.
The rules are pretty strict about poems not having been published anywhere else first (even on personal blogs). But all poets share their new work with a small but very special group of friends, right?
I’m going to attempt a work-around—because I’d really like to share this poem with you!—by following up this post, which is available to everyone, with one that can only be read by my paid subscribers. (You know who you are!) You can join their ranks, and read the poems I hope to publish elsewhere, by signing up for the lowest-cost subscription to Life-boat Made of Words: $5/month or $30/year (not my rules!).
In my August 6th interview at the Library of Congress with that inimitable champion of life and poetry, Grace Cavalieri, I spoke as deeply and truly as I’ve ever spoken about my life as a writer. If it were possible, I’d have this interview inscribed on my tombstone. You can listen to it here. The audio-only recording is 36 minutes long.
Stay strong, everyone! Keep your eyes and your heart open! Together, with courage and empathy, we will find our way through this dark time.
