Abraham's Birthday

Phil slept on the recliner last night. We got home from our friends' house and he got a sore throat so badly that he couldn't sleep. "Where is the NyQuil when I need it?" was his question to me today. (Since NyQuil has both artificial color and flavor, not to mention pretty serious drugs, we don't keep it around. But that is the one thing that Phil likes to put him to sleep when he's sick.)

He was prepared to go to the store, but I found a bottle of structured water that has helped me in the past, ASea, and that relieved his pain enough that he could sleep.

And so he spent Abraham's birthday dozing and watching movies. I tried to read to the boys at one point, but they were energetic and excited. So they had a happy day, and I made cinnamon rolls and pizza and chocolate cake.

Abraham opened some presents.

His favorite of the day was a Star Wars Lego set: that made him very happy. And, for a change, he built it all himself, without relying on his brothers.

The theme of their favors and decorations was pirates (courtesy of Phil's mom, who never fails to make sure I have princess plates for my birthday, and something pleasant for the boys).

And my favorite of the pirate loot was the mustached sunglasses.





***

I've been thinking some about the creative process since going to the creative time Float last week. I've written eight more poems since then, in my second ever burst of creative poetic output.

What is odd to me about writing poetry is that I don't necessarily want to. Isn't one of the cliched literary characters the hack poet? I've read enough prose that I feel comfortable with my prose. It's not the stuff of the Great American Novel, but I am content with that. For the most part, I think I am clear and readable, and when I reread later, I like what I wrote, and feel no sense of self-consciousness.

Poetry is completely different. I have no measuring rod in my head. I can easily recognize that I am not Herbert or Hopkins, nor even Rossetti. But where do I fall on the scale between good poetry and hack poetry? I have no idea. I have no idea how to edit, either.

It is a bit surreal, and because of that, other than a few attempts, I haven't bothered with poetry.

But isn't that just another expression of my need to be perfect? "If I can't write a perfect poem, I won't bother."

It seems that that might be silly. If I write something and I feel something go out of me, and it moves me and I like the result, I probably shouldn't care about whether the entire world thinks it's a bad poem.

(What a shift in blogging! With apologies to my long-time readers, who started off years ago with the descriptions of a wide range of frenetic homesteading tasks, and find now that I have shifted to introspective contemplation on the nature of my creative output.)