bellascribe

…
Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning–
whatever it was I said I would be doing–
I was standing
at the edge of the field–
I was hurryingthrough my own soul,
opening its dark doors–
I was leaning out;
I was listening

– Mary Oliver, Mockingbirds excerpt

Not too sorry to see January go — it’s a month with anniversaries of a personal tragedy for me, and for C. Some years the month has skimmed by but always there’s some turbidity — on some level it’s — they’re –always known. Then this year I’ve been immersed in the past in a new way; I’ve been reading my journals. A project I’ve always planned to undertake some time, the time is now.

So what I was doing — something I was doing — Feb. 1, 1996 was introducing Mary Oliver’s “Aunt Leaf” to my (Charleston School of the Arts) 7th grade creative writing students, and asking them to write their own poems “about a made up friend conjured out of natural objects or nature.” So this lesson invaded my consciousness enough so that I was marking it in my journal later — with scribbled notes about “rags of twilight” — though I have no real reason why this lesson or class, out of any others. Which is curious but like a lot of the entries I made about the pragmatics of my days, my work and so on. (You can read “Aunt Leaf” here.)