I just finished two limited edition hand-sewn poetry books, Vodka Musings & Cloud Poems and High in the Andes, Book One. (That means there will be a Book Two one day, right?) An accomplishment for sure, it took over two years of talking about the books. I wrote lines of words onto ecological sugarcane paper to re-perceive the ordinary, to linger in the diverse. I worked hard, edited, hand sewed, signed and numbered each edition of 100 books of both volumes. I was gloating for weeks, but now I sit with these beautiful books in boxes. I have created more stuff. I make sure the books have plastic on top of them in case Thelonious the cat wants to get in there and rustle my words and images. Or in case there is a flood behind my eyes.

In the aftermath, I feel like a faithful fool to words and images; my lines have been cut off, my poetry has been shortened to commas and periods and very long naps.

Today I force myself into the studio to write. I find words like diluculum and crepusculum, dawn and evening twilight, words related to lucidus, bright, and creper, dusky. William James talked about the crespuscular depths of personality, the source of all our deeds and where decisions take their rise. Crepuscular depths? Maybe I have sunk too far or perhaps not far enough.  I do not want to fall into the dark hole of no body, no words, no images, but perhaps a culum, a diminutive suffix for twilight can be encouraging, morning and evening. At daybreak I may be able to reenter that stream, even if my eyes are puffy and my brain got left behind during the night.  In between diluculum and crepusculum I can bake bread, eat my spicy soup, drink strong coffee, eat chocolate superballs, sit and write nonsense until evening twilight when I can have my cocktail and edit.