Ten-Finger Exercises

I bean gardenin', that's what I bean doin'.

Hooray, we've had green beans, onions, lettuce and our first two zucchinis from the garden for supper!

I decided it was time to plant a few more rows of beans, as soon as I weed out a place for them, so I had them in my jeans pocket.
They went through the wash, and are now the equivalent of soaked and ready to get out there. I'm not quite as ready. The thunder and lightening drove me inside twice tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning will be okay.

I've been reading more poets now. The teacher has established a traveling library of Northwest poets for us to check out. I'm really enjoying it. I'm wanting to make my work more something, I don't even have a word for it. When she gave us prompts last week, I noticed for the many-eth time how difficult it is for me to go from the concrete to poetry. It's the same with painting. I keep trying to make the picture like the photo instead of making it a creation of my own. Here's my quick poem expressing my dilemma.

Climb Aboard?

It’s a difficult feat for one
so clumsy to manage the
task of boarding a boat.
One foot on the dock (beware

of splinters), the other
extended to a surface in
motion with uneven wake.
Such is the journey to

the abstract from concrete,
to metaphor from circumstance,
to poetry from life. Frequently
I fail to make the transfer

successfully. More often,
although I know it’s out there,
I fail to even see the boat.