Day 11, NaPoWriMo

When I am working, bringing to life my idea
there comes a time when time is not my friend
not the deadline, although there sometimes is one
but a sense of fear, what if I run out of time,
what if I can’t finish this thing I’ve started;
work harder work faster keep going don’t stop.
This is the beast that waits in the corner
Keats saw it and knew it waited with him
as he stood alone at the edge of creation.
We cannot spare the moment to chase it away
that small dark thing interrupting all work.
Sometimes the work of words whispers, calling
against the work of my hands itself singing.
Have a stolen morsel this moment of writing then.

A little tip of the hat to a poem which really hit home during the session of sonnets recently held at a local library.

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Progress and the dilemma

There are parts of quilting that lend themselves to listening to audio book listening. Other parts don’t work at all – you come to a half hour or more later having missed a lot of plot.

I’m prepping small bits for applique. Not my normal thing but it’s not hard. (I did listen to part of Seamus Heaney reading his translation of Beowulf and that was very very cool. His translation was great to listen to and oh that voice. It struck me that there’s something about the delivery of an epic poem and I sort of happened on it myself during the Gnomic Saga writing. It just seemed to take a tone all its own AND like Beowulf, I quite innocently included the telling of another epic tale within my tale. That’s how they roll.)

All right, so what does this have to do with a dilemma?

Turns out that I was really looking forward to NaPoWriMo. And April first arrived just as the momentum picked up on my current quilt project. This part of it is not conducive to thinking up poetic thoughts, big or small. Which leaves me sewing frantically and watching the clock each night. It’s not the typing that’s the problem, I could use dictation if I had a few thoughts to string together…

Tomorrow, I try getting my daily bit of poem done earlier.

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Day 10, NaPoWriMo

today I measured in small stitches
gathering up the edges of curves
part watching the silver needle
keeping the thread from twisting
ironing turned edges with a firm hand.
While my work began to build
I listened to a poet spin out words
building an epic tale of ages past
telling the story so plain I wept
at the end as the hero’s pyre burned
and his loyal men fulfilled his wishes.
To tell an epic story, to march the words
forward and forward and forward
until they overlook the seas of time
that’s all our work, small pieces
we might hope to leave behind for
someone else to hold and see.

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Spring cometh

I was inside most of today basting edges of things to be appliqued… but outside:

crocus

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Beowulf

For the son of Ecgtheow, it was no easy thing
to have to give ground like that and go
unwillingly to inhabit another home
in a place beyond; so every man must yield
the leasehold of his days.

Listening to Seamus Heaney reading the bulk of his translation of Beowulf, I got pulled in by the power of epic tale retelling, by the simple, strong people and stories and by the wonder of tales which include the telling of tales within them. Although the audio recording is not unabridged, it was worth the few hours of listening. I would not have complained at an unabridged version but that no longer is an option.

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