Into Warm Light

Those of us who write ... and there are a lot of us ... thank goodness ... know about obstacles.

My day ... and I'm sure yours, too ... is filled with little distractions, interruptions, barriers, hurdles which must be cleared, if I am going to have a few minutes that I can devote just to writing.

I must.

I have this burning need to write ... for myself, if nothing else ... possibly to share what I've written ... possibly to submit it to an editor who may ... or may not ... have time to give it a leisurely, thoughtful reading.

But finding time ... those few minutes for scrawling something on paper ... or, these days, sitting at the keyboard and watching the words as they appear across the screen ... is the problem ... a major problem.

Somehow we do find a few minutes to listen to those voices which beckon us ... and we do write ... and we do sometimes emerge, then, into the warm light of understanding.

The poem:

INTO WARM LIGHT

An afghan draped
on my legs, fingers
aching with cold,
fatigue slowing
the curl of letters
unspooling to become
words, I write
in a house gone quiet
except for random
creaks and groans,
the laboring clock,
going where voices
softly beckon me,
down the corridors
that eventually
widen out, opening
into the warm light
of understanding.

© 2001

(originally published in Capper's)