Ren Powell, Poet | Playwright | Teaching Artist

I’ve had a gift certificate on my desk since my birthday in April. Yesterday I finally swapped it for four books that seem oddly symbolic. I got Autumn and Winter by Ali Smith. Fry’s Mythos, which I started last night but am not sure I like, and…

I worry about my memory.

Still. Yesterday was a good day. Easy morning coffee and writing, then a walk in the woods near the lake with Leonard. When I first adopted him he was skittish and we gave up taking him there. Now, 4 years later, he held his tail high and smiled the whole time. I’ve missed the woods in the morning darkness, so I’m glad for the beginning of a new routine. And it’s also nice that Leonard is our dog now. Whether E. likes it or not, Leonard has decided men are okay after all. And E. comes in third to the man who lives down the street. (I am second).

We can’t help who we fall in love with. And I’ve learned to stop feeling jealous. I’ve learned it is all about where we put our attention. About recognizing the futility of our will. I suppose it is the opposite of all this “manifesting” people are selling to one another. The clowns waited for Godot in the 1950s. Now they are trying to conjure him. Here are seeds for a new play: a naked dance in the woods, something burning, and words that rhyme.

I am trying to focus on the good in the days. What hope survives the hurricane and what small joys it misses entirely: the bones that are surprisingly strong, and the seemingly fragile, tiny wings of things that hide and hold on. Maybe in a world that is so arbitrary, the real good is to walk behind a storm and gather the good. Willfully accepting.

The students are playing in the park this weekend. While they pin themselves, and spirit gum themselves into their costumes to rehearse, I photograph the white mushrooms growing on a tree stump. White, marshmallow ears.