'I Labour by Singing Light'

 (DylanThomas: ‘In My Craft or Sullen Art’.)

Well yes, Dylan, mate, I suppose it is a labour. We can spend hours getting it all just right, or as right as we can (seldom quite perfect). Even more so than prose: not only every word needing to be the right one and in the right place, but every piece of punctuation – every blooming space, when we’re writing free verse. The crafting, indeed.

It’s true. It is our work. THE work, whatever else we may do to feed ourselves and keep a roof overhead. Yet it feels like play: the most absorbing and delightful play. When I’m most deeply involved, ‘I’ disappear; there is only writing. This is what I exist for. And, as you say, we do it regardless of ‘praise or wages’ (or, very much more often, their lack).

I’m with you, too, about that singing light, ‘when only the moon rages’. The moon has always been my muse. As a child, I used to gaze on her for hours through my high, uncurtained bedroom window: a presence both magical and reassuring. I began writing poems when I was seven. 

A natural night owl – as well as, for many years, otherwise occupied during my days (studies, employment, child raising ...) – I have usually worked on my poems late at night, with the moon looking in at me through a window. It still happens; although now, old and widowed, I can organise my time as I like.

 

Once, when my adult son visited, I said to him as he was heading for bed, ‘I might stay up awhile and do some writing.’

‘Try to keep the surprises to a minimum,’ he said, straight-faced. I stared at him blankly.

‘Mum!’ he said, ‘You’ve been doing that as long as I’ve known you.’ 

September moon –

lighting my desk each night

in slow waxing

Written for Haibun Monday 9-1-25: Labor at dVerse.

('In My Craft or Sullen Art', which Frank Tassone quoted as part of this prompt, has long been one of my favourite poems.)

Visiting the Dead

Patti Smith, in 'A Book of Days,' includes a photo of an angel in a cemetery. She says, 'Visiting the grave of Bertholt Brecht, I always pause to touch her wings.' 

That 'always' makes me wonder about the frequency of her visits … her pilgrimage, one might deduce.

I suppose it's convenient for people to have somewhere to go, to remember and reflect on those who have passed on before us, whether family members and friends or those great figures we have revered. 

I don't much hold with visiting graves, myself. I also don't have much tolerance for funerals. The body, no matter how wonderful it was in life (and they are all wonderful, bodies) is a mere empty shell after the soul has flown. Funerals and graves and urns full of ashes, it seems to me, are really for the living who are  left behind.

I would rather remember my family members by their photos taken when they were warm with life; my friends by their words and actions; the 'towering dead' (as Dylan Thomas called them) by their works which remain to move and inspire us.

your living face 

the timbre of your voice 

indelible –

even after being gone

for years of memories

Note: The Dylan Thomas reference is to his poem, 'In my Craft or Sullen Art.'

In Friday Writings #106, Magaly asks us to include in a piece of writing the full title of a book we're reading or planning to read this December. I have been reading Patti Smith's 'A Book of Days' all year, one day at a time, and am continuing to do so during December.

The Calling

The Calling

The moon high in my window 

floated, gazing, all the long nights,

claiming me: whispering, singing –

beginning in my far childhood

and never ending, not yet.

I knew and did not resist.

‘You,’ I said in my silent thought,

‘are my lover, my mother,

my teacher, my secret God.’

I chose with my whole heart.

Was chosen and chose.

Was claimed and laid claim.

It was written; witnessed by stars

and by the dark space of night itself.

Written in blood, carved deep.

It was always written.

The rest I was free to invent.

Life, other loves, children,

even other work, other

delights of the soul.

But here in the deep night

which is home, 

only this truth remains,

all else extraneous 

as the moon and I commune.

Written for Thotpurge's Poetry Tuesday #3 – Borrowed, where we are invited to 'borrow some magic' from a poem that inspires us. I've always loved Dylan Thomas's 'In my craft or sullen art'.

Also linking to Poets United's Pantry of Poetry and Prose #8. I'll be travelling when the Pantry goes live, with limited internet access for a couple of days, so I may be a trifle tardy reading and commenting on other's writings. I'll catch up soon!