Look at your journal frequently
carry it around
move it from surface to surface
set a pen beside it a pretty good pen
not the best pen
pick them up put them down pen and journal
decorate the journal a sloth sticker, a Texas state park ghost buffalo
put a very small journal in your pocket to carry at all times
and a tiny pencil
read read read read read read read
become weak and jealous
because you love some other’s poems so much
keep reading until you are over yourself and focus
on loving those other’s poems wholly, without shame or jealousy
occasionally write on a scrap of paper like a receipt or the inside of a new sock wrapper
or squeezed unreadably into the margins of a printed article you read about writing
a word or a line that stirred inside you like rocks in a tumbler
that you might want to quote later or use as an epigraph
or title
lose and
find these scraps and occasionally ponder those words
this can go on indefinitely
buy some colorful little sticky tabs
tab favorite pages in some books
believe you have things to say about the book’s ideas
or the grace of a line
like a poem you might start
and sometimes try to find on that tabbed page the stirring
bit though you won’t and this can go on indefinitely
try to not listen to your cat who prefers you
to be in a position where you can’t write
when he lies on you and otherwise
says nothing demands nothing except
not writing
lifting the pen bothers him
think quietly stilly writing a whole thing in your head
this can go on indefinitely this trying not to yet
obeying the cat
even now he covers your journal with his long milkweed body
his paws soft as desert primroses limp and white
so you listen to your cat
he chirps
this can go on–this now this now this now indefinitely
summer is arriving which is to say springs’ puddles become thunderclouds
the towhees make a constant racket
the iris smell of grapes and root beer (purple and brown)
the tulips are your first kisses long faded
crab apple blossoms litter your floor like of course snow
reject the tired cliches but still
you want to tell someone
when the cat feels you pick up your pen and try
to write what you want to tell and the cat begins to leave
you put your pen down
because after all he is the reason you are sitting down at all
when he leaves you pick up your pen
when he comes back you put it down again
this can go on indefinitely
your brain gets way ahead of your pen since you’re not writing
and when the cat returns
chirping and opening his silky throat to your hand
purring with a healing rough rumble
as if he were a mercury outboard engine gurgling beneath a lake
you want to tell someone
and of how your children are grown
your partner is patient
so what’s the problem?
a little shame opens in you like a hole in the ground
maybe just a small hole like the door to a cement ant colony or
a dark lily you like to breathe
do not go there do not breathe that
not that cave or dark door or flower
or wait maybe you can pick up your pen and write about that
or list potential titles for your book in progress
didn’t you put a few on the margin of a Nature Conservancy magazine
or a 2 year old New Yorker?
and wonder if titles count as writing
Quench. Fire Season. Ghost House.
The Feral Lady Reflects on Gertrude Stein’s Portrait
this can go on indefinitely
titles the cat’s return
and then a text bleeps
your phone always nearby witnessing
google memory is too full
you must delete
clean
pen down phone up
a job dings in
editing
maybe you won’t try to write until that job is done
or until the days grow shorter
or colder
or the spring’s puddles fill with lightning and thunder and breakage
but the day is tender as a cat’s purr and his throat
you want to tell someone about this
you could pick up the pen
you could tell someone
your journal or your sister or a stranger
how perhaps writing isn’t as necessary as you thought
or it is
you pick up the pen and the towhees do not stop speaking
and the cat is asleep curled in a chair now
and the day is long then the soft evening
the sun’s purr the moon’s silky throat
dark star in the farthest sky
you want to tell someone about this
you open your journal
pick up your good enough pen
begin to write
and the evening is as sweet as it ever was
as kind to you
as patient as you have been
and you think about how later you might write about a whiskey you call Truth Serum or tequila smooth as a cat’s throat–in light of your topic, how to write–or about the best pens, or how now the journal is open, the pen’s in your hand, then it’s touching the page
its first mark a tiny blue planet
CarolGM Writer, Editor, Coach, Survivor 
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