This week’s poem is “Last Night’s Rain” from my new book, The Anonymity of Waiting. As I read it today, I wonder what emotions it evokes in readers. If any brave souls would like to share in the comments below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I am hoping to self-publish a fifth book in the spring called Voiceless Choirs: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. This is a collection of mostly new poems but has a handful from previous books. It is my first full-length book where all the poems touch a central theme—spirituality. I look forward to releasing it because I feel it contains some of my best writing. I am mainly waiting on cover design, which a friend is graciously doing for free.
In other news, I’ve already started compiling a sixth book. This is how I work: as I finish poems, they go into the draft of a new book, and I self-publish when I reach 80 to 100 pages. For a few months, my latest draft has just been titled “Sixth Book.” But today, I settled on a title drawn from a line in a haiku I am working on: A Song of Glass.
This title resonates with me because artistic endeavors are inherently fragile. Creating is a vulnerable act; sharing what you’ve created feels (to me) like putting a crystal vase in the middle of a freeway. So please, as you read, listen to, or view others’ works, drive carefully!
Last Night’s Rain
Last night’s rain glazes
the naked maples
and their last leaves
clings
to the houses and fences
sheathes
grass blades in droplets.
The whole neighborhood is under
surface tension,
sealed.
Along the street,
reflections lie drowned
in shallow puddles.
A Wandering Minstrel 