*

I wrote a few words in my sketchbook, was it yesterday? I thought I felt the heat of a stranger's eyes burning a gaping hole into the top right side of my head. I thought I smelled the rank odor of singed hair. This particular smell calls to mind the slaughtering of goats against a hot and dusty high desert backdrop (Science declares smell & memory to be linked by blood). Boys backed away, turned, and in their imaginations ran for dear life. But in spite of this discomfort, I tried to complete the phrase. Poems don't just materialize from the flower garden's bulbs, from a bank of sun lined clouds, from frothy sea or mossy forest. They appear at your door beaten down and cripple. They hunger for nourishment. They crawl into your life selfishly. It might be that some days the desire rests on your lap or lands on your shoulder. You want to brush away the crumbs, you want to rise from that place, to sweep or kick away. But if you wait long enough, making that extraordinary effort to block out what is immaterial so as to bring the essence of that Thing into sharp focus, perhaps understanding will settle into your mind.