spring break

My Spring Break is almost over, and tomorrow is Good Friday. My confession: I have not written a new poem this week. In fact, I haven’t done any poetry/thesis work since Sunday. I had a good stack of poetry books I was hoping to get through by now, I wanted to write a new poem a day, I wanted to drink Arabian Mocha Java in the sunshine. But it snowed freakishly overnight on Tuesday and has been cold ever since and I’ve been working every day at my part-time job as a background investigator. Since most of my work is done on the computer, reviewing and revising investigation reports, it kind of burns me out.

I need to read poetry when I’m fresh, not after emerging from pages of employment verifications and derogatory information alerts.

Tomorrow is a day off work, and a day to work again as a writer the whole day, with a few errands and appointments mixed in. I will spend the morning with Elizabeth Bishop's The Complete Poems: 1927-1979.

I’ve also been reading and researching a lot about Alaska for honeymoon travel. I’ve only really explored the Ketchikan area, and my only trip to Anchorage was a day trip for the start of the 2000 Iditarod. (It was a special family thing, since my mom is a certain airline employee.) We’ve got our flight tickets to Anchorage and 7 days to get all the hiking, kayaking, fly fishing, and mt. biking we want to do. If anyone reading this has ever visited Alaska or lived there (or lives there now), please share your recommendations in the comments section. There’s no “Alaska Through the Back Door” book and I want to get a little off the beaten path. We have the Lonely Planet and Frommer’s guidebooks so far.

Even though moose also live in the forests and mountains around Spokane and northern Idaho, Bishop's poem “The Moose" makes me think of Alaska. Except for title, you don’t really get to the moose in the poem until the 23rd stanza…

A moose has come out of
the impenetrable wood
and stands there, looms, rather,
in the middle of the road.
It approaches; it sniffs at
the bus’s hot hood.

Towering, antlerless,
high as a church,
homely as a house
(or, safe as houses).
A man’s voice assures us
“Perfectly harmless . . . .”

Some of the passengers
exclaim in whispers,
childishly, softly,
“Sure are big creatures.”
“It’s awful plain.”
“Look! It’s a she!”

Taking her time,
she looks the bus over,
grand, otherworldly.
Why, why do we feel
(we all feel) this sweet
sensation of joy?

“Curious creatures,”
says our quiet driver,
rolling his r’s.
“Look at that, would you.”
Then he shifts gears.
For a moment longer,

by craning backward,
the moose can be seen
on the moonlit macadam;
then there’s a dim
smell of moose, an acrid
smell of gasoline.