Just One Thing

I woke this morning early, perhaps 5 am. I know many of you are groaning at this bit of information, but sometimes for the writer and artist, it's necessary to get up when no one else is awake. Or simply stay up, as the case may be. Personally, I like to know the morning is coming, that the light is changing incrementally as our earth turns toward her blazing star.This morning, the moon was still on the horizon when I woke. A bright spot in a dark navy sky. And I heard the first bird sing. There's something so special about that. The trill of notes seems to be sung just for you, even though you know it's not true. It's "only" life inside a winged and feathered creature finding a way to burst forth into expression. How much more should we be singing the praises of creation; we who have voices and words and the ability to play music, sing, and dance?

Try this at home: set your alarm for 5 am one day this week. Put the coffee pot in your room if you must. Set two alarms. Sit quietly, looking out a window, listen to the rising day. Grab a pen and paper and beginning with the first thing you noticed, write a poem about it. Make it a haiku or a prose poem, a song lyric or a sonnet. Just write the poem. We are called upon to celebrate and commemorate life as poets and artists. Sometimes we must get up very early in the morning in order to do it. Leave your poem in my comments if you like. I would love to read them. Share it with someone.

I bought a great little notepad from Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville, NC while I was there visiting last week. Each note is printed with, "I will do one thing today." Beneath that it says, "Thing."

Yesterday I mailed out a CD to a local DJ with some songs I'd co-written on it. And although I did many other things yesterday, I was most proud of the one I did that I'd written on my notepad. Today's is "write a blog post." I am doing that now. There is something to be said about the surety of doing one thing; just one, to forward your creative process. I had to get up very early in order to do this. So might you.

Try it. Make your one thing tomorrow: I'll rise at 5 am and write a poem. You might just find you like it.

Like Eve awake before Adam,
I heard the first bird sing.
She trilled from the branch of an unseen tree
music just for me.
From her tiny breast she
filled an entire dawn with dancing notes,
left me longing
to sing my own song
so easily and free
with only the dimming moon to hear.

______

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