I Write by Night

***Snow often wrecks my plans, but I love the way***
***it brightens the night.***

I’ve always been a night owl, a terrible frustration for a child. In college, I indulged myself by signing up for mostly afternoon classes. Then adulthood came with its annoying, early office hours. Now that I’m retired, I do most of my writing while you are asleep.

It’s not that I prefer the dark. I’m nervous of things that go bump in the night and prefer being alert for them. I also like to read and write when the quiet world feels like it’s all mine. Even when I was working, my energy slumped around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m., then picked up until I was fully re-energized by 10:00.

A Facebook follower, noticing the crazy times of my posts, asked,

“How has restlessness and wee-hour waking changed your pov, your work? Are your muses kind when there are fewer conscious poets?”

First, there are a few misconceptions in these questions. I’m not especially restless. My DNA results tell me I’m meant to be a couch potato (for real). I don’t wake up in the wee-hours, I stay up through them. Sometimes I take a nap at 9:00, 10:00, even 11:00 p.m. to refresh my thinking. Finally, many poets are night owls with our headlights turned on high beam. Maybe our collective consciousness is a plus. One friend regularly exchanges emails with me around 3:00 a.m., and I often hear from journal editors after midnight.

Luna Is My Muse

This should have been obvious, but it took a while for me to catch on. The full moon has long played havoc with my dreams. A few years ago, I was passing through the living room and saw both cats sitting on the stereo cabinet, staring up at the sky. I stopped to see what had captivated them: the full moon. I joined them in their meditation.

Luna

The moon a golden gong

suspended on night’s thread,

swaying just above the rooftops.

At the window, my cats stand sentry,

eyes and ears locked on Luna,

awaiting her command.

Transfixed, ready to shed

their bodies and prowl the sky.

You can click on BOOKS at the top of my home page to learn more about my books, available on Amazon.

In the spring of 2016, I realized that my book, Running Counterclockwise, was already two years old. My “next book” file was still somewhat skimpy, so I went through poems I already had to look for trends. That was when I discovered Luna had been pushing me along. In addition to many poems that mentioned the moon or night, I had several of those wonderful poems that fall from the sky into my lap: darker poems that wouldn’t stop by on a sunny afternoon, like “A Vampire Takes My Bus” and “Poets in the Sleep Lab.” The sleep lab poem inspired the title for my book: Waking on the Moon.

My title inspired my husband to design two book covers, and his covers in turn inspired me to speed up my work. Once I had the moon as a unifying theme, I began collecting moon quotes to organize the book’s sections and began writing more moon poems. Luna was obviously pleased by this decision and kept supplying me with new ideas. It took less than a year to get from naming the book to holding it in my hands, thanks to Kelsay Books.

In case you’re wondering, I’ve been working on this blog this afternoon. It’s now only 6:00 p.m. Poetry writing and blog writing live in different rooms of my mind.

My recent book is darker than the first, but that isn’t wholly because of my late hours or Luna’s influence. We all have a darker side, and I love the chilling writing of Edgar Allan Poe and Margaret Atwood, and the dark humor in poems by Thomas Lux. I’m going to leave you with a poem based on a quirky news story I found on the internet. Not only was the situation ripe with drama, but I was bothered that they interviewed the doctor and the paramedics who took the body to the hospital, but didn’t ask the old woman how she felt. That was my invitation to speak for her.

Waking in the Morgue

Ostrow Lubelski, Poland

Voices. Echoes. Stench

of antiseptics. Not my room

at home. I push, pull, find myself

inside a soft sac. Dear God, no.

Don’t let me be back in the womb.

I don’t want to start again.

I’m 91 years used to Janina.

Am I still female? Still Polish?

I thrash, try to use my own weak

contractions to get this over.

I hear a zip, squint into the light,

tell the man peering in

I want a cup of tea.

Glowing with Gratitude

Dear Writer