Instead of sitting and writing in the morning, as I am wont to do, I've been taking the dog on walks. He has become increasingly impatient (and demanding, as only a hundred pound dog can be) earlier and earlier, cutting my few minutes of something-like-poetry short. This could have something to do with a sort of senility, and something to do the fact that he has bone cancer, and I am having a hard time denying him whatever happiness he still gets out of our early constitutionals.
But I have begun to take poetry with me. While I walk, I think through problems I'm having in poems, or perhaps note a line that arrives. I'd like to say I could retain whatever insights I have while holding a leash, but something about the prosaic nature of picking up dog poop seems to break the poetic spell, as it were. So I make notes on my phone as needed. [And the astute reader will note that influence, here, of the Jeeves and Wooster audiobook I've been listening to lately.]
It helps that there are crows and sparrows and phoebes and the occasional egret and heron to inspire me, among the (now) blooming star jasmine and oak, and the torso-high weeds. If I can have a few minutes in nature every day, I'm all right.
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