It’s the second week of classes, and I’m way behind on blog posts. Then my brother has a heart attack. The nerve! It’s funny how you can think your life is as busy as it can possibly be, that you don’t have any wiggle-room for extras, and then something turns up and says, “Hey! Pay attention to me!” And from somewhere, the time appears.
He’s doing well, and will probably be discharged today. Did I still find 15 minutes to write? Yes.
Here’s a link to a poem of mine that appeared Santa Clara Review, fall/wtr 2009.
On my first day of classes, one of the things I talked about with students is “how to begin.” We also talked about writing every day. It’s so easy to get caught up in a world of distractions, text messages, TV shows, those handy games loaded onto your smart phone. But what if you could set aside some time to just do what you love to do? I love lots of things — and I’m as compulsive as the next person. But somehow, for me, that thing I love to do is always — writing.
This morning, in the dark, in my cabin, it was my sixth day back at work on the novel. It would have been easy to skip today, but I can put a foil star on my calendar if I work for just 15 minutes, and I really wanted to earn that star. As it turned out, I worked for 30 minutes and I was a little late for school (I wanted to be here at 8:30, and didn’t arrive until 9…no matter, class wasn’t until 10).
In my class, unable to resist, I also bragged about Sparrow. I’m told that it will be available soon, and if you need it sooner you can call Writers & Books. $16.95 plus 3.50 s & h. Let me know if you have a bookstore or another reading venue that you’d like me to visit!
Yesterday a big box of books arrived at my house.
I am getting ready for my Winter quarter classes, beginning on Monday, and wanted to say that I took a few minutes for poetry. So here’s something from another winter. I borrowed the image from The Trumpeter Swan Society website, and it makes me happy simply to know that they exist. 
TRUMPETER SWANS
cattle in the field sparrows and winter
wrens the unremarkable crows
then the swans dropping like hail from the clouds
four of them flying
in a long row of long white necks and white wings
dropping over the barbed wire fence enclosing the brown field
the other birds the cattle
not stopping their grazing not looking up
docile, unastounded at the swans
arriving like news
of another and not yet diminished world