Dec 2022
“To write is to go looking for what I don’t even know myself before I write it.”
- Annie Ernaux, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature
I went into the dark canyon
not knowing where it would lead -
another adventure
taken up to pursue a dream,
my hand holding the reins
not knowing what lie ahead
nor what I was looking for.
The notion that led me here
words in my head
the meaning of which were a cypher so cryptic
I knew not what quest I would wrest from them.
But I had been told that this riding
was an exploration of the unknown.
That I was just a hapless pioneer
in a borderless land,
a wilderness
requiring a spindly surrender.
- Annie Ernaux, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature
I went into the dark canyon
not knowing where it would lead -
another adventure
taken up to pursue a dream,
my hand holding the reins
not knowing what lie ahead
nor what I was looking for.
The notion that led me here
words in my head
the meaning of which were a cypher so cryptic
I knew not what quest I would wrest from them.
But I had been told that this riding
was an exploration of the unknown.
That I was just a hapless pioneer
in a borderless land,
a wilderness
requiring a spindly surrender.
I posted a poem here recently (now deleted) that was based on a line I remembered from a dream. I had no idea where the writing (riding) would lead me. And I now realize, it lead me into an area in which I was unqualified to visit. But I had to take the leap into that unknown – which in a way I do every time I sit down to write a poem. Thank you my friends for tolerating my hapless surrender.
(M/DeSoto, TX)
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