Rhapsody

no.
not the music thing.

a sleep-resistent night last night; i was overcome by the beauty of night. it was cold but not bitter, dazzled with brilliant stars in a deep black sky, quiet except for the small motion of night-things, and still - so very still - - but deeply stirred in my soul.

after i came in from the outside, echoes and cadence and creaking floor boards and the soft soft bed waltzed me into a "write the poetry" frame of mind, and i was up a bit longer crafting a draft of a thought of a dream of a someday maybe poem.

- - it's not the one i've been working on for weeks... that one is my taciturn piece and STILL will only speak when it has something important to SAY.

i am happy to have irons in the fire, poetically speaking. it's nice to be able to bumble about with a few, or even several, different thought-works at any given time on any given day in any given mood.

this is happening because i'm spending more time on what i write now. even when i think that i'm getting complete thoughts and phrases, i want to hold on to them, roll them over in my hands for a bit - - feeling all the edges for rough spots, holding them to the light to make sure that they not only shine but SPARKLE (but only where they should sparkle... sparkling where one should shine, or maybe even glow is as distracting as a dull spot in the middle of a rhapsody), and waiting for that weepy/giddy/giggling/jaw-dropped/can't-breathe self to say:

"Oh My God, did that REALLY just come out of my OWN mind? It can't possibly have, I don't have that kind of skill... but look there it is and it's in my book in my own writing so I must have. How Wonderful!"

then i know it's ready to move over to the next page where the finished thoughts live. that's where it waits to be partnered with the other good thoughts, and arranged and rearranged
(and then revised again)
before they're all finally lined up in perfect formation for a final read, as a full poem
at which point i usually tear it down and start editing all over again.

but last night - -
last night was beautiful
and so was this morning
and i have a lot of new thoughts in my little book of pencil scrawls and i'm happy