Night time conversations

 

I feel as if I am drowning in my words. My thoughts and feelings condense to drops. Phrases and lines have trickled down. Observations and experiences become streams and rivers. And so soon I’m flooded out of my mind.

What is a metaphor or a simile good for when so many poets have parted the waters like Moses?

There is nothing new under the sea and on dry land a glass of cold water will quench your thirst when you are thirsty.

From their side of the glass, everything said has already been said. The image makers, the storytellers, the rhymers of rhymes and the teller of tales. Beauty and truth and truth and beauty. Tragedy and ongoing comedy.

And yet from my side of the glass, I wonder if this might be my first time. So swim I must. At least I’ll wade in the water.

The toad on the riverbank has no new song to sing, but he and I might have something to say even if we are the only ones awake underneath the moon.

And then I heard the katydid and I walked over to where she was calling. And when I began to tell her of my woes she just tittered.

“Look over at those lightning bugs flying over the grass,” she chirped. “Not a word do they speak, only a streak in the night - over and over again.  All night long, not a song, but a fleeting, glimmering glow. If you want to write you should join the cacophony - the torrent - whatever you want to call it.

“Talk to the moon and the stars if you want to. They have time. Write words if that’s how you want to express yourself. You’ll never, ever make the sun come up in the morning, you silly little dribble.”

And then, Katydid laughed. “And look over there. That lightning bug just got published.”