How did I write these poems? I got cancer. During recovery I couldn’t write, couldn’t think, could do little but stream TV and groan. So I began to keep a journal: note one daily observation, tie each day to a single bright particular, as evidence (to myself) that I was still alive. I saw some cardinals reflected in window panes on a neighbor’s lawn. I felt a breeze and noticed myself listening for windchimes. The world was still out there.
This practice represented a second kind of recovery: in the first poetry class I took, my gateway and conversion, students were asked to keep an Observatory log. Record one thing a day. Not a thought or memory, a live instance. W.H. Auden suggests that beginning writers should learn many languages and care for a farm animal. I think they should keep an Observatory. Try it for a while. You’ll see patterns in what you note. You’ll end up with a document more interesting than most poems, more interesting than most “ideas.”
Months later, somewhat steadier, I started forming my observations into poems. I wanted to preserve the sense of distinct seeing, emulsified delicately with other elements, embedded into something larger. One line is adapted from Virgil. One occurred to me—marginalia—while reading a poem by Jorie Graham. One describes a dream in which Jack Christian and I found a time machine and were arguing about where to go. We agreed to visit the present. I still agree with that decision.
