Each winter I forget the lizard joy

of summer heat that bakes into my skin

and bones and makes me live within the day,

the hour, the moment that is now, within

the melting of my every primate stress

and anxious hours' unrelenting press.

Already weary when I waken

Already weary when I waken,

in spite of seven hours, or so, of sleep--

my morning rituals made in murmured tones

of somnambulent automaticity.

The Idea

The idea is to write.

This is at the core of every bit of advice any writer has offered to those who would write--to just begin, to be consistent, to produce, to create. If I would improve as a writer, I must write.

When I was an undergrad studying creative writing at Brigham Young University, a professor shared a quote from someone (likely dead) to the effect that if one would be a great writer, one should write a sonnet every day. This periodically seems like a good idea. But in the intervening years, I largely lost my voice for poetry, my feel for meter and rhyme, and now a sonnet a month seems a daunting challenge. And so I won't write a sonnet a day, or anything a day.

But I will write.