I lean into the shortening days making a point to get outside a little bit earlier than the usual dog walk, to go a bit further than is my custom, both serving to extend my time outside. In December I have to work for inspiration. I look at the brown rubble in our yard to find color. I search out the bits of beauty--the curled leaf, the muscular vine, the fallen locust pods. I point and shoot the camera, gather a few treasures like a squirrel, scribble like a madwoman, and sing poems as if they were songs of a child.
The barrenness of the poetic task: as if everyday we look out at a barren courtyard of rubble and from this are required to make something beautiful.
--Theodore Roethke
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