April 1: Poem 1

In thinking of Ulysses
of some work of noble note yet to be done

I ponder over coffee 

and ready for final radiation.

Later this morning

I will ring a bell 

with an arm I couldn't lift 

forty days ago.

While something new awaits

my first steps forward.

I must go to it.

It will not come for me.

Pathways beckon.

To steward the school.

To craft the comic.

To tell the tale.

Some paths will be followed.

Others, as Frost forebodes, 

will be left behind.

So I sit at a crossroads.

And I listen.

Knowing.

The answer is not in the bell,

but in the echoes that will follow.

Notes:

The process of writing poetry in this way is pretty meditative. It's a 'next-level' form of journaling, I suppose. It forces me to take an honest status check of what I'm thinking and feeling right now, and put it on (digital) paper... and then release it to the wild, which is actually going to be the hardest part of this process, and which has already surprised me. I didn't know what I'd be writing about this morning, but it wasn't this. It also doesn't allow a lot of time for the revision process I usually use; I like to let things percolate for a day or two and then go back to them for a revision. I expect that some of these will beg for revision a few days later, and I don't know how to cross that bridge yet, or if it needs crossing. 

Time, as it does, will tell.