Moodling

Brenda Ueland, bless her old soul, speaks of the necessity of the writer for what she called "moodling." She meant slowing your pace, diddling around, until you find the origin of your inner resources. It's a concept tailor made for me.

My mind catches fire, but not before lots of poking around in the ashes, searching for embers.

I came to this blog three times already, trying to think of something to say. Then moodled around on the computer while listening to music. Dylan's "Not Dark Yet" was playing as I read a status update from Amy Newman, a fine poet I met when she was a visiting writer at BGSU. She wrote of October and how we can't trust its pretty days.

That prompted me to find an October poem, and I stumbled on this one by Frost:

October
by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the all.

What is left for me to say, except Frost has said it all, bundled all my perceptions of October and presented them to me as a gift. "Make the day seem to us less brief," he writes. October does remind us there is no forever.

Nothing profound from me here. Just moodling.