the poets are at their windows

I was lucky enough to be in the audience at the Key West Literary Seminar last week when US poet laureate Billy Collins described my life. I'm sure he didn't know that he did. I'm sure every writer in the auditorium felt the same connection. We all have our windows, our inspiration, our place in this world that draws the words to the surface. Mine is on Mayne, just under the maple tree and parallel to the front porch swing. This is my window to my world.

 

 

The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,
and the poets are at their windows.
They are at their windows
in every section of the tangerine of earth-
the Chinese poets looking up at the moon,
the American poets gazing out
at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.
The clerks are at their desks,
the miners are down in their mines,
and the poets are looking out their windows
maybe with a cigarette, a cup of tea,
and maybe a flannel shirt or bathrobe is involved.
The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong
game of proofreading,
glancing back and forth from page to page,
the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes,
and the poets are at their windows
because it is their job for which
they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon.
Which window it hardly seems to matter
though many have a favorite,
for there is always something to see-
a bird grasping a thin branch,
the headlights of a taxi rounding a corner,
those two boys in wool caps angling across the street.
The fishermen bob in their boats,
the linemen climb their round poles,
the barbers wait by their mirrors and chairs,
and the poets continue to stare
at the cracked birdbath or a limb knocked down by the wind.
By now, it should go without saying
that what the oven is to the baker
and the berry-stained blouse to the dry cleaner,
so the window is to the poet.
Just think-
before the invention of the window,
the poets would have had to put on a jacket
and a winter hat to go outside
or remain indoors with only a wall to stare at.
And when I say a wall,
I do not mean a wall with striped wallpaper
and a sketch of a cow in a frame.
I mean a cold wall of fieldstones,
the wall of the medieval sonnet,
the original woman's heart of stone,
the stone caught in the throat of her poet-lover.


-Billy Collins

the big 'O'

It's a new year. A beginning. I always adore these. Gives me a chance to sweep up the misfortunes and bad choices into a pile, use my industrial-sized broom to tidy up the droppings, and chunk them away. If only it were really that simple. Symbolically, metaphorically and all that literary jazz, I'll do it all.

My husband and I officially opened a small business on January 1. All those small business articles posted in Georgia Connector during the past year got me to thinking about all the work we had been doing, most in secret. All those words I penned that probably no one was reading except my publisher, my husband and myself. All those photos we took of amazing places that are dutifully filed on the hard-drive that no one experienced except my husband, myself and probably Bear. (Bear always assists in the download, whether he likes it or not.) Its name is full circle fotography. yes, lowercase. My husband hates it, but in time, he'll come to love it. Please visit often, www.fullcirclefotography.com. Please like us on Facebook. Tell your friends. We're a business now, so numbers mean something especially to those pesky people to whom we query . . . unfortunately.

That's my first 'O'.

Next, making sense of this pile called my office. Technically, up until a few months ago, it was a spare bedroom with my own little corner in my own little chair (how I love Leslie Ann Warren as Cinderella). If I'm going to do this business thing right, I must become organized and look the part. I figured out that I'm a pack rat. Not necessarily stuff or things, but paper. Notes. Post-its. Reminders. Letters and cards. Yellow pads, most scribbled on. And all important, I must say. I wouldn't dare discard, for who knows what treasured discourse lies on those tattered sheets. They will find a home behind the one shelf with a door.

My second '0'.

There's plenty more 'O's on my list. Organization never ends. I'll be on to my spice rack, my closet, my kitchen drawers and anything else that needs making sense of. Time to de-clutter and make room for the things that will simplify and gratify my life, our life.

Even if it's only a slip of paper.

My Other Own Little Corner

My Own Little Corner

The beauty of IKEA Billie - piece by piece

Part I - Taking Shape

The End of Round 1 - Book Shelves