guest blogger

I've been wanting to have a guest blogger for some time. I suppose it's only fitting that the first be my writing partner in crime. This is something that she composed on her private blog, and I don't know which moved me more, the poemlet or the reflection that preceded it. I relate to both in ways that I can't really explain. And so, here they are, reflection followed by poemlet, with her permission.

Enjoy, folks:

poemlet for a stormy day

there's something about composing poetry in the car, as though you can feel the rhythm of the tires, or are forced to work on the sound and feel of the poem as you recite it out loud over and over line by line trying to hold on until you make it to paper to catch it. (when i was in high school i used to come home late after dance class and say only, "hi mom, need paper!" or "hey, gotta write this down before i lose it" before even taking off my shoes.) and there's something nice about finally having paper and pen and letting the words just come from your memory straight onto paper, all the hard, unsteady work done, just letting the words come out with a sigh.

some of my best rhythms have been written while driving, and while this is really not be one of those (being a poemlet it is still rough, after all a few hundred more recitations would undoubtedly smooth it out, but it's still a poemlet afterall), it's fitting for this steely, stormy day:

last night i tried to call to you
to bring you back inside, but
my voice was only wind and so
the sound it could not carry.

three storms were closing close
in steely sheets below iron sky,
my lips too dry to purse at all
couldn’t carry sound.

and i was alone the only one
who could see them bearing
bearing down, only alone
as i ever was could i feel them

coming through the calm.