There are many writers who'll scoff at the idea of a block but I know it's real and although I'm resisting calling this particular period of time a block, something is holding me back. But it doesn't take much for something to happen which opens the door a crack, temporarily, to allow me to see the possibilities of jumping in again.
What sorts of things?
Finding the poem below by Denise Levertov which I kept from an old calendar. It was the poem chosen for July 4, although I don't remember the year.
Wind and walking by the sea for the exhilaration of what it does to the waves, hair, clothes and face.
Brendan Cleary ringing as he walked up the hill with a bottle of wine to share it on his birthday, talking about old bluesmen and women and wanting to go to New Orleans.
Weeding, cutting back, picking lettuce and lovage, mint and micro-greens.
Talking with Robert Hamberger, such a generous man, such a gifted writer, who has counselled me with pretty much the same sentiments as Levertov.
So on election day, of all days, I am reassured by what she shares in this poem - confidence that I do have what it takes to write again. It's only a question of attention, of being there, of making that cross...
Witness
Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.
Denise Levertov from Evening Train (1992)