Enga mellom fjella

Descent

Descent

This is the chill before the cold.
I don't deny it
only shiver to squeeze some warmth before sun sets,
shrug it off
before the coming of eternity
or winter's blast
whichever freezes my bones at last
while flesh sloughs off.
This chill is but a flash of frost to come.
I don't deny it.

© Kåre Enga

Today is grey and I just lost an entire long entry (I am NOT happy. I can never remember exactly what I wrote or how I edited a poem on-line.) Got up late because it was so dark. This is the kind of day for me to hang out in a coffeehouse ... all day.

RIVER CITY READING FESTIVAL:

That was yesterday.

Jim Lehrer, of PBS fame, was the keynote speaker at this first event. He is originally from Wichita; they were thrilled to get a well-known Kansan. He spoke about writing. How he decided to write when he was young. How, when he got an advance, he quit his job to write more, was hired as a consultant and entered the world of PBS.

About 25 years ago he had a heart attack and then a by-pass. His doctor told him to make a list of things that stressed him and then told him to stop doing half. He did. He now naps at lunch time and is not to be disturbed unless it's the pope calling, maybe the president ... maybe ... He does not do business dinners. Mealtime is for eating. He does not do speeches (this wasn't a speech he laughed).

He has published 17 novels!

He reads voraciously (listens to books on tape). He writes everyday and does not get blocked because he has multiple projects. He lives in the panhandle of West Virginia.

It was a pleasure to hear him speak.

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I went to the talk and reading by Kansas Poet Laureate, Denise Low. I have been reading her Tulip Elegies ("Tulip Elegy VIII" really impressed me).

I also listened to readings by Barry Barnes (he drums and performs on the streets) and Michael Johnson. I bought a novellette by Napolean Crews about the first gambling casino here in Kansas. He tends to do historical work, but his experience around 1995 in setting up the Kickapoo casino led him to expose some of the underbelly of that time.

I ate an awesome pulled pork with mango sandwich offered by the Eldridge Hotel. Had cookies and coffee too, of course.

I went to a workshop given by Sarah Kanning on getting published. She mentioned how a rejection slip is awesome when it has an encouraging note written on it. How one needs to know the publication and gave the advice to follow one's heart (she starts at the top), and getting rejected means the poem can be OFFERED elsewhere (submitted sounds too much like submission and one offers one's work ...) She may get together a support group for those of us wanting to be published.

Arrived an hour late and left an hour early; but, it was worth it.

IMAGES:

Season of the Twittering Trees:

Imagine a flock of fifty or more small song birds (mostly sparrows and finches here) perched on the branches of a well-leafed tree. You cannot see them except for an occasional flutter, an incoming flight, one leaving. But you can hear their twitter a block away.

Yesterday, they were in the Linden. Later they will be in the Bradford Pear that holds onto its green-turning-purple-turning-red leaves till winter, then the fastigate Oaks that hold their branches close like a broom pointed at the sky and do not shrug off pale brown leaves till Spring.

It's a marvelous thing.

OVERHEARD:

While sitting with Cody at Henry's:

text-whore: for all those getting carpul tunnel in their thumbs from text messaging.
sexting: text-mess. sex (not to be confused with Texas sex).
sexiled: Your roommate has a guest. You are are hereby ...
cock-blocked:

Kansas: 58º and gloomy.

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