(from the NaPoWriMo prompt: write a poem inspired by your favorite kind of music.)[So, two things: 1) a friend asked me the other day about my poems being "done enough" to publish like I am doing here, whether or not I should revise more. My answer: writing is never perfect, usually or especially to the person writing it. It will always need, deserve, beg for, and—most interestingly—fight revision. That's the fun part. The poems that I put out into the world often get revised later. Today, this poem is as it is today. Is it the best I can do? Yes, for today in the circumstances I find myself and my somewhat addled brain. I don't typically add poems here that I am deeply unsatisfied with, but most poems here could use a few more moments in the Revision Universe for me to tinker with. 2) This prompt was a long shot for me because of my relationship with music. I was also working on something else that I was enjoying. Here is my something else.]
Rivers move in many ways
downstream and through
a thousand rivulets at the
shallow, grass-covered bank
into eddies and tidepools
and bogs in low lying lands
that trap the water’s surging
between tall trees to stagnate
and breed tadpoles and midges
and larvae by the millions.
It does not care for my bridge
or road or tended lawn or garden
because in the spring, the river swells
and races, excavates deep and
seeps out wide, clears itself of all the
detritus of a year and a life.
Finally, I know that my finger is in the picture. Arrgh, blast my finger! I will put a better picture in when I get it.