It isn’t often that I feel terribly out of place. That I am acutely aware of being transplanted. That I feel a pinch of want – the severed root that cannot nourish – and I feel just slightly withered.

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

– Cutting Loose, William Stafford

I wrote to Carolee, nearly three years ago, about the way I have written this season difficult. Cutting loose is inherently a give and take. And the only way to keep going is to stay in the moment.

But I miss the letters.
I let go of the wrong things in the mælstrøm.
I find them again, each time I circle around – I rediscover my neglect.
I am too passive, too forgetful – and the world is too round for singing.