A moving stillness

Those times nothing feels like it is moving. A slack point in the current. Tide coming in. Snowmelt going out. I write, I read, I apply, I submit, I edit, I rearrange, I perform. Are these the habits of a poet?

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Today feels like sludge. I started at 85th and worked my way south putting up posters for my class at every coffee shop I passed. Community boards, in bathroom hallways, overflowing, I brought my own tacks.

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In the city there are these eddies of possibility for communities to form. Spaces made not only for money. Places bodies are allowed to linger, where currents connect for a slack point, a resting point, a sitting point.  

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The sun was out, but it is grey now. Clouds come in like blankets raising the temperature a mark or two. It is always warmer downtown. Sidewalks and streets between, hold, then release heat like an uncontrollable baseboard.

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The Duwamish and Green push into what's left of the Black River. The surface holds a moving stillness.

*habits of a poet, From John Weiner’s essay Lanterns along the Wall, quoted by Cedar Sigo in Guard the Mysteries.

Full quote:

Poetry is the most magical of the arts. Creating a life-style for its practitioners, that safeguards and supports them.

Along the way to becoming an artist are many pitfalls. For those who do not write do not know what true magic is. 

Many today become artists by adopting their looks, and gear, or else adhering around or to those who practice this satisfaction. I cannot imagine a single day, when I have not spent dreaming or conjuring certain habits of the poet. Fortunate the few who are forced into making things surrounding the poets come true.