My Muse and I Would Like to Share

Well, my muse has been pretty good to me today. That story that I so want to write is inching forward, but I have to admit that several times today I just had to get up and walk away, fill my head with something else and then come back. You know, it's kind of like doing a puzzle. You search and search for that one piece that will connect the easy parts of the puzzle that you already have done, but you can't find it. You get to the point where you're certain that they just failed to include that piece in the box, or maybe the dog ate it, or something and you give up and walk away. Then, later you just walk casually by the table and there it is! In plain view!

That's the way with writing. That perfect word or phrase just isn't there. You know exactly what you want to say, but all the tiny little words your brain can think of just aren't the right ones. So, sometimes leaving it and returning later is the best thing to do.

Our story isn't ready to share, but I do have a poem I wrote a while back that I'd like to put here.

I'm not much of a poet, but I do love a challenge. This one is called a "sestina" and you'll see the very precise pattern it follows. Pay particular attention to the ending word of each sentence.

Until next time.

T.C.






I BELONG

Always and long a part of me, I belong in the night
Warm and cool, close and far, bonfires send their sparks
Into the sky, into the stars, into the skimming clouds
Blown by wind, touched by limbs, tattered by the breeze
To mark our time, to claim our place, to make a fire
That tells a tale, that shows a cause, that helps us dance.

Hours long and seasons short, time to make our dance
Of change and will and family, our voices fill the night
With laughter long and tears but few, we look to fire
Our souls aloft to come back to Earth, to that which sparks
Our desire of place and home. And so we want and will and must breeze
Through the dark, into the stars and over the moon where nothing clouds

Our voices raise, our eyes see far, the evening holds the clouds.
The hills move close, the heavens shift, the Earth begins to dance
When morning comes we go our ways reminded by the breeze
The day is long, the noon sun warm to carry us back to night
My time, our time of blue and veils and sparks
Of warmth and group, of pagan souls we gather by our fire

To expand our world to the stars and back, we want only to fire
Our souls and minds and hearts together in the dark. The air clouds
With smoke and scents and faces, we move together and it sparks
Our wills, our friends, our homes together in our dance
Hidden from day, ever present, unseen, we worship in the night
Creatures small, we know them well, our Earth will breeze

Always I come in dark and cool. The ashes are blown by the breeze
To feel the warmth, the ground, the trees. The fire
Fills me up and makes me whole, the glow lights up the night.
A sparkle on the wind it is and in my eyes and in the clouds
That race across the crescent moon and hang there as I dance.
To hold us close, to light our way, with burning boughs and sparks.

Secret to the waking world, I am absent in the day, what sparks
My soul and makes me real is something that can breeze
By my cheek and not be seen, but felt still in my dance
Of air and stars and pale blue light, of calm that helps me fire
Passion and glow and all myself. This time, my time and nothing clouds
My head, my heart, my soul at all. The soft and blue and cold and dark –night.



So on I go, with flame and sparks, with the hills and stars and fire.
I move with grace and feel the breeze. I celebrate the time, I marvel at the clouds
I must go, I must dance. I belong to the night.