In the early morning write

Gordon Lightfoot has a song that begins "In the early morning rain ..."    Was up by 6:00 A.M. as usual.  No rain this morning, only clouds, and a bit of sun pushing through.  I stopped by some fellow bloggers' blogs and saw that a few more "morning people" had already posted the day's words.

Check out this haunting Armenian melody played on the duduk by Djivan Gasparyan over at Bob Arnold's July 31st Longhouse Birdhouse  (posted at 6:22 A.M.).   (Mornin', Bob!   :)

and Tom (The Middlewesterner)  Montag's latest "Three from the Old Poet",  posted at 4:37 A.M.   (An excerpt:

As if I've
worked my whole life
becoming someone

I can admire.

Or poet/writer/blogger Linh Dinh, whose political essays, astute comments and ongoing State of the Union photo documentation of America in decline; the homeless, disenfranchised, tent cities, urban blight, etc. telling you far more than you'll ever get from CNN. (He posted today at 1:57 A.M.     I'm guessing that's not when he got up and that he's really more a "night" person.)

Another morning person, up by 5 A.M. with a new poem, is William Michaelian, reminding me that thought-out poems that don't get writ remain just that: words in transit, not yet extracted, much less parked.

Today we have the annual family picnic, again this year out in St. Louis-de-France.  Last year, about 40 people came, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins, in-laws, significant others, and friends, and it lasted from early afternoon until nearly midnight, the evening spent on the patio to the sounds of guitar and keyboard, everyone singing along to old, familiar tunes.  It poured rain pretty much the entire day but nobody left, and when the downpour subsided, the mosquitoes came out. 

This year the weather promises to behave and allow a more pleasant time of it, the barbeque taking place outdoors (instead of in the garage) and dips in the pool.  Last time people brought about 8 different salads, and of course a big pot of Michel's famous baked beans and the usual grilled delights (even salmon burgers  for the semi-vegetarians).  (Our local supermarket last week carried imported frozen fish-kebobs from China--something I'd not seen there before.  Why this particular local market offers only imported Chinese garlic and not the fresher, more readily available and less-expensive-to-transport garlic from neighboring farms, is a mystery.)

Back to the writing thing again. This, of course, is no excuse--activities in general, social obligations, daily tasks, etc.--for not writing. It's perhaps cyclical, or so it seems at times--more time spent this summer on reading than writing, more hours internally absorbing, mentally archiving, "saving up", almost, for when the time is right, which for me is Fall and Winter. But this is absurd, the writer self argues. Sounds more like an excuse, chimes the neglected pen.

They may be right, and it's not a question of season, or intervening activities, or habitual proscrastinaton but something more baldly basic: simple discipline. I envy poets who can come up with a new poem every single day and offer it, in finished form. And then there're those naggy fictional characters nagging, nagging, nagging at you to finish their story, the one you've been working on for months--YEARS--and have put aside, like unfinished paintings waiting for the most conducive lighting, the right color mix, the optimal circumstance, the perfect conditions. This has got to change, scoldy self says to lazy self. I mean, really. Why are you blogging, instead of writing?!!!

My fingers have no answer. It's like being stuck in ... the Waiting Box--waiting. But for what?