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Jonas loves playing with the books on my bookshelf. I don't mind much, really. I mean, at least one of us is interested in them. Last night he pulled an old book of poetry off the shelf- a collection of major American Poets- Edna St. Vincent Millay and the like. to be honest, it's a book I've never really done much reading from- just picked it up because it was on clearance, and well, how can you turn down a book of classics when it's dirt cheap?

So I thumbed through it a little bit before bed last night, standing under the light of the floor lamp next to the computer. And then I fell asleep with poetry on the brain.

It's no secret that I haven't written anything in years- despite the influence of such great writers in my immediate circle- like Erin and Laura and Mike. But as I lay there last night, struggling to find my way into the land of nod, I began re-writing- editing old stuff that is collecting dust in a folder somewhere. I revised an entire poem that I had written several years ago- one that I had considered, at the time, to be perfect- realizing that it really didn't say a whole lot of anything that I had intended it to. That while the wording was creative, it wasn't complete or coherent. Funny how that happens, isn't it? Time and distance makes the writer more objective.

And so, perhaps later, once J is napping, I will pull out that old poem, rehash it, and try to remember the perfect lines that my mind scribed last night, because, of course, I didn't bother to write them down when they were fresh in my mind.

Perhaps this is the return of my poetic life. Or perhaps not.