Menial Labor and the Muse - Maxine Kumin

I've never lived the farm life, but it was not that difficult for me to relate to what Kumin says about how "writing depends on the well-being that devolves from [her] abbreviated list of chores undertaken and completed." My writing often stems from actively doing little: sitting in my room listening to just the right music or relaxing in a park people-watching. Kumin goes on to say how rewarding it is to write after a hard day of work. I recall trying to write a poem about my mother in my apartment, television set on full blast and roommates gabbing to no immediate end. It was impossible. I could not get inspired at all. My "mom" was nowhere to be found. I decided to go upstairs into my room, shut the door, turn on music and write. A poem was never born so fast. Like Kumin, "[m]y writing time needs to surround itself with empty stretches, or at least unpeopled ones...."

A Country of Edges - Wendell Berry

This essay made me thirsty with references to the refreshing water, leaping "off the rock lip." I love the phrase "[o]ne drinks in the sense of being in a good place." I am thirsty. Not only for water, but for the experience that Berry is having. I thrst for the river, the trees, the unpolluted air. Living in Austin, it's not terribly difficult to go to the lake. But I get caught up in the daily grind: drinking coffee, going to work, running to class, studying...where does it end? When can I quench my thirst?

The imagery in this essay is vivid: "bright jaunty clumps like Sunday bouquets," "Easter gone wild," "craving dry land like a frightened swimmer," swallowtail butterflies...are like a bouquet of flowers." I always admire those who can be poetically analytical. Too often I'm one or the other. My left and right brains ahve a hard time mingling. They are thirsty for each other. When can they quench their thirsts?