Each year, when May approaches the land is parched from seven months of drought. It is astonishing that despite this, bougainvillea bloom, and an assortment of other plants manage to flower and leaf. Yesterday we had a hard rain, and it was blissful. Also unusual. It is the earliest downpour of this sort we have seen at our pueblo outside Oaxaca since we moved here five and a half years ago.
To our delight, we have recently met several Americans, only to discover they live right here in our village. And they are artists! Both about our age. A poet who is also a translator and is dual citizen, and an accomplished musician who has travelled the world, composing and performing. This feels like a small miracle. We recently celebrated with a party at our home. The two had never met, and we had never met the poet. Now, suddenly, our little circle is widening — an artist colony of sorts. Who would have imagined?
Writing is taking almost all my time these days. I am obsessed. After completing my travel memoir, The Weight of Air, (available by donation for download,) I have begun an epic prose poem of my entire life. The first forty-eight years must be drawn from memory, but fortunately, since 2006 I have written weekly posts here on My Fairy-Tale Life. They have become a kind of archive — a well I can return to — where moments already captured can now be distilled into poetry.
I have also chosen to write in two distinct voices: one modern, spare, and direct; the other more biblical in tone, expansive and lyrical. My method has become this: I write first in the modern cadence, then work with Google Gemini to help render it into the more biblical voice. What comes back is often surprisingly beautiful — a kind of echo, but different orchestration— which I then shape further. And it happens almost instantaneously. A remarkable tool.
Here is a sample of the work flow. A section inspired by the time after Naomi died when my youngest daughter Sarah had begun studies at Columbia College in Chicago, majoring in dance:
In Chicago
the younger daughter flourished.
The city of broad shoulders
received her dancing steps.
Her life opened
with courage and joy.
And the father
felt gratitude rise
like music.
For the child who
had endured sorrow
now walked
with lightness
and hope.
Here is the biblical styled verse:
In Chicago, the younger daughter flourished, and her dancing steps were sure;
The city of broad shoulders received her, and her life opened with the courage of the morning.
The father felt gratitude rise as a song, for the child who had endured the valley of shadow
Now walked in the joy of her own soul, a testament to the resilience of the living.
They both work in there own way.
At this point, over 24,000 words have been set down. And about 11,000 more to come.
An average poem is 300 words.
While the writing continues, my old muse, painting, stands to the side, asking "Please don't forget me!"
