It’s a tiny drop of dew on a blade of grass after a rainstorm
that won’t let you shift your focus until it burrows into your subconscious
with tangled images that call out to you
then it disappears for awhile
but you know it’s still there, the melancholy thoughts
still disjointed pulling at you to give them life
to tell their story untill they weigh you down with abandon
you try to convince yourself that it’s not your story
but then the tidal wave, no longer a tiny drop of dew
envelopes your subconscious and debris of human suffering wash along
the shore of your mind and interrupt your every day routine
then it disappears for awhile
until you are sitting at the Sixth Street Cafe with your writing pad, pen
cup of Moroccan dark roast coffee
the sound of rain pellets on the picture window
in the corner of your wooden booth
the drone of a train whistle tunnels into your subconscious
and synapses begin firing away
a train roars by
rain mixed with snow blurs your vision and you look out of the window
see the ghostly shadow of the red caboose as it disappears into the mist
suddenly the fog lifts
you see distant sun drenched fields of poppies and columbine
the entire story now unfolds and you know everyone so well
their stature, their favorite foods, their deepest secrets
and your hand begins to write- you dribble words onto
paper like creamy butterscotch candy in metaphors of longing
of pain and euphoria that dance with you in a
tango of sentences and the floodgates open
you stay with them until the finish, not to win the race
but to honor their presence, and the heaviness lifts
your muse gives you a creative wink
and runs off to romp in her fields of glory.
—
The Zingara Project 