the more the work and the pressure pile up, the more i tend to get involved in the poetry - last night, wrote five on delaware, of all places, and now i've moved on, in my mind, to virginia maybe. virginia is full of wild and beautiful places, like chancellorsville, full of history, and so is delaware too i'm sure, but they're hard to find in delaware. for one thing, i've only been in delaware at the middle of the night, if at all. sometimes my memory is a little hazy. i did hawaii about a week ago and i have no memory whatsoever, never set foot in the place. everything i know is what i've read, or what i've found on google images. and the last one like that will be north dakota - it's a place i missed, back in the day, when i was trying to catch as much as i could.

so in this volume, which i'm working on furiously, i'm trying to make it true to the original trip, which was back in the seventies. i try not to include things that have arrived on the scene since then, like black friday and walmart, and try to really show the emotions or the feelings of traveling around, which does not have to be in the exact place where it actually happened. so in delaware for example i have the feeling of being stuck way up on the icy memorial bridge, behind a jackknifed truck, and i'm not sure it exactly happened that way, but it happened somewhere, and in fact the memorial bridge is possibly the only thing i remember about the whole state. and, the memorial bridge at night. i didn't actually see it, though i could get a good shot at it through google images.

back in the house, it's stick gathering time - the last clear pretty weekend, probably, before it gets really cold. we've hauled in a few cords of firewood and we aren't sure if it will be enough - never been in the high mountains for an entire winter - and my guess is, it won't be, entirely. or, it will last a bit longer if i can go get some sticks to help start the fires, and don't always need to cut up whole logs just to make sticks to start the things. so, my plan is to go to nearby neighbors, who have sticks lying around all over the place, and just ask them. as one neighbor said, they're just sticks. to me, they're more than that - they look like kindling on the mountainsides, and if i can gather them, they will last me a little longer through the winter. i have that late fall, gathering impulse. plus, the need to get out into the fresh air.

in virginia, it's the civil war. tales of stonewall, chancellorsville, stuff they all know by heart, and we're just travelers, amazed that it matters so much. or it's arlington, or the tomb of the unknown soldier, both of which are in virginia. lots going on down there, it's a big state. and it needs to be rewritten. as i look at what i have, three or four of them, in the spring, i've used three years in a row. time for some new stuff. time to get t'writing. the good news is that i can do five, six, ten at a single sitting, if i have my mind on it. some of them require planning or research. but the feelings i have, left over from the trip, they're still there.

beautiful day - time to pick up sticks, and recycle.