Waking Up

    This afternoon I did something I have not tried for a long time. Alas, it is not losing weight. It is sketching.  I wear Sketchers, but I am not a sketcher. Art has always been frustrating for me. The pictures I draw are nothing like the pictures in my head. My medium is words. With words I can express my thoughts with accuracy, and occasionally, beauty. Nevertheless, I found myself sitting on our back deck with a spiral notebook, a well-used pencil and tiny stub of talent. My only goal was to draw what was right in front of me. After drawing the back fence, spindly sumacs and leafless apple tree, there was an uninteresting empty spot, which in real life was only dead leaves and dormant grass.  I decided to push myself further and write a poem.
     Despite what I said above about expressing myself in words, my writing brain has been as dormant as the grass for months now. I am beginning to think it will never grow back, which is no great loss to the world of literature, but still disturbing to me. Perhaps I have blogged a piece of my mind too many times and now there is nothing left. I decided that, like the drawing, I would simply try to represent what was right in front of me which was the coming of spring.

Waking Up

Beneath the newly melted snow

before the grass begins to grow,

the promise of the coming spring

makes welcome, even common things

like dead grass, leaves and dog poop.

Rejoicing in the cloudless sky

the dog, the cat, the sun and I

enjoy the music of the birds

without the need for thought or words,

like leafless branches waking up.