on editing: getting started is the hardest part. because it’s work, and the work is deep and exhausting. but, once I’m in it, in the rich and tender heart of someone else’s storm, i feel so calm and purposeful, directed. like a quiet ship that’s wading through with a white flag that says, “not to worry, dear; we’re almost home.”

of myself, it is complete surrender. less logical, more ‘knowing.’ some intelligence that enters a port in the heart that i can’t explain, but probably looks a lot like a blind person walking through a field, navigating by the changing thickness beneath his feet, the height of grass hitting his legs, bird whirrs, insect thrums, the warring perfumes of native plants.

i’m not even sure it’s a method I can recommend. I shut off; it turns on.

and at some point, we reach land.

“August,” by Mary Oliver

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reading
my rippled arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.