Wordsmithing on Sunday

Unlike yesterday, today I awoke to unmistakable evidence that, outside, the sun was shining brightly. I awoke a bit later than I would normally have gotten out of bed on a Sunday morning, so the sun was already up. The moment I opened my eyes, I saw that the walls of the bedroom were awash with light; our window coverings do not block out sunlight very well.

Even inside the house, I can hear birds giving their enthusiastic endorsement to a day without rain. There are still signs of yesterday's rain; the color of the wooden fence behind the house is much darker than it is when dry, betraying the fact that it remains soaked in water. The rain has passed, but the temperatures remain very brisk. It's 39 degrees now, according to my WeatherUnderground report on my Internet launch page...that's 2 degrees warmer than it was when I sat down at the computer after getting my first cup of coffee.

I awoke later than normal because my wife and I went out to dinner with friends last night and, after a nice meal of shared tapas, they invited us over to their house for some wine. We stayed there for quite awhile and did not get home until late, then I stayed up until well after midnight, reading and watching television.

Yesterday, after reading some poetry on someone's blog, I dusted off some of my old poems from months and years past. As I read them, I realized how intensely personal poetry can be and, for me, how it can capture the mood of a specific moment in time that may never be repeated. I read some of my poems that made me laugh at my own sense of what was, at the time, drama. I think my reaction to those poems was a good indicator that the poems were not good...not at all good! I'm delighted that I saved them only for myself, because I am sure I would want to disappear into the wallpaper if someone else were to read them.

That notwithstanding, I do sometimes like to write poetry, or at least what I consider poetry. One day, if I get up the nerve, I may "go public" with something I write. Earlier this morning, I found a website for theDallas Poets Community, which seems like an extremely SMALL community, but one I might be interested in learning more about, nonetheless.

Maybe I will take some time today to revisit some of my poems (there aren't that many) to see if they can be salvaged. Or maybe I'll write some new poetry. Or maybe I'll just do some wordsmithing without caring whether the words belong in poems, in short stories, or in my long-awaited but still unborn novel.