I have not added to this blog in a ridiculous amount of time, but not because of idleness. In truth, I would rather be working on my new novel, or a new story than on my little blog. And yes, I am the first to admit that the jury is still out in my mind as to the value of social media for authors. But more than that: time feels sped up. It is early morning and there are the rituals there, the yoga and the walking of the dogs & the writing & the pruning of the suckers on the olive tree, then in no time, as if in those old films where there is a full-screen shot of a timepiece whose hands are wildly moving clockwise, it is suddenly 3 p.m.! Perhaps I am not alone in this phenomenon? But when life gets juicy, with highs or with lows, I am always drawn back to poetry. I find it to be the most immediate and arrow-to-the-heart form of expression in words. Here then, a freshly minted poem:
Falling
By: Jill Koenigsdorf
And so it begins-
the cracking open & path
clearing-
Your eyelash found,
a fine sickle, dark
against the surface
of a new stick of butter.
The sawdust you made first,
then the ashes.
Spring has the reputation
as the time of awakening-
rebirth
But I say it is Autumn.
So much urgency-
a quickening before
the journey inward.
The earnest impossibility
of preparedness.
Squirrels bury the neighbor’s
walnuts
in every pot they find,
making a mess of what
was carefully smoothed &
patted down-
nudging aside old roots.
The last figs
dry
on the branch.
The last tomatoes
puckered
as the faces of old women, cling
to the vine.
The last, the last,
but also the sweetest.
And all the showiest flowers
a study in duality-
half in their vibrant, summer glory
the other half
brown & rich
with seeds.
They too long for surrender-
to close the distance between
themselves &
the fertile soil below.
They lean forward-
teetering towards that contact-
then
coming to rest there
where they await the rains
that will make them green
again.
