A long winter and a wet spring are giving way to summer at last. Less than a week from the longest day of the year and it feels like season and weather are finally in sync.

Poets write about what they know and what they think about most. For a poet, for any writer, the thing we think most about is writing. That is why there are so many poems about writing and so many novels and short stories where the main character is a writer.

Here is a poem about writing… and spring.

Enjoy!

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Gustave Caillebotte

The gray and rainy spring continues here in the North Country. Last autumn’s drought is at last a distant memory. Wetlands and lakes are where they should be. We are thankful for that, and yet….

Here is a small poem about our gray spring.

Enjoy!

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Nine Mile Creek Last Autumn

Spring in the North Country remains gray and rainy. A wet May has given over to a cool, wet June.

Last autumn’s drought seems like a mis-remembered dream. Lakes and wetlands are green again. Creeks are running fast again.

Here is a newer poem about the North Country.

Enjoy!

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Since all poems are love poems, you knew I would write another poem about typewriters. Here it is, with the inevitable “artistic” typos.

Enjoy!

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“The Reading Life”

Poets write about what is nearest their hearts and bones. Those who have followed this blog for any length of time knew that a poem about reading and enjoyment was inevitable.  Here it is.

Enjoy!

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An Autumn Sunset Along the River

“I always say that a poet loves the world, and the prose writer needs to create an alternative world.” —Mary Karr

I came across this quote last week on Twitter. It is excerpted from an interview with Mary Karr in The Paris Review.

I liked it so much I retweeted it. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. As I have said here before, all poems are, in the end, love poems.

Here is a new poem, recently written and recently typed-up.

Enjoy!

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Let’s face it, you knew a poem about John Wayne was inevitable. So here it is.

Enjoy!

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When you type, typos are inevitable. At least they are for me. In the digital world I can quickly fix them. They are also much easier to see if you have spell-check on.

In the typing world, that is not at all the case. And once a mistake is made, it remains forever like a bad tattoo.

Here is a “finished” draft of a newer poem with yet another typo, or two.

Enjoy!

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Split Rock Lighthouse

Here in the North Country, April snowstorm after snowstorm had us doubting whether spring would be coming this year after all. But predictions of 60- and 70-degree days have us happy and hopeful at last.

From my writing desk I look over snow-free yards of grass yearning to turn green. I watch birds moving between feeders and the snow-free earth and the branches of still-bare trees.

Between snowstorms, I have walked along the edges of a few of the nearer ponds and heard the songs of redwing blackbirds… the surest sign of all to me that spring must truly be near.

We live indoors and act in so many ways as if we have conquered nature, but in the end, we are merely creatures of nature ourselves. At least that is what we are meant to be.

I continue a routine of writing in the morning before heading to work… newer poems as well as older ones that need a bit of dust shaken off of them. The small notebook of ”finished” drafts continues to grow. Soon it will be time to do something with them.

This poem is a new one.

Enjoy!

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Sunset Along the River

Days of gray and rain have now followed days of heavy April snows. What snow remains is in the shadow of things: the north-side of houses, beneath trees. Spring is trying to arrive in the North Country, but this year it is taking its not-so-sweet time.

Here is a poem about warmer days.

Enjoy!

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