Incurable Untimeliness
The hawk was keening in the distance, likely as displeased with the steamy air it slogged through as my writer’s notebook, its pages rippling as the hot moisture seeped into the fibers. I had not been exploring myself there for a while and a fear had been building in me. What if, once I was able to get back to the blue lines and black ink, I would not like what my handwriting would record? Even worse, I thought, what if nothing would flow from my pen at all? It was a sad thing I had been becoming and I wanted to rewrite the script but I was having the toughest time with the beginning. Truth be told, it was so difficult to start because the ending scared me to death. Once begun, somehow I knew there would be no turning away from that trajectory.
I had taken a break from reading about Native American culture knowing we’d be back in that world soon enough. I had turned to some kinder, gentler authors—Robert Frost and Henry David Thoreau among them—as I researched an article I was writing. Being so steeped in nature through their words brought me great pleasure and I thought about how influences like that could seep into a writer’s work without him or her realizing it. I had seen this happen in my narratives: as I read these “mentors” my writing seemed to naturally deepen to a point that everyday subjects, especially where nature was concerned, were infused with significance through a personification I was somehow driven to achieve.
I was carrying a book of Frost’s poems to the screened porch when I caught sight of a spider web spun tightly to the railing on the deck. It caught my eye because the dew had collected in spots and the droplets were tiny prisms as the morning light flashed into being. I was always in awe of these webs—so beautiful in their artfulness while being deathtraps for winged things. How could the murderous snare look so pristine in the freshness of the dawn? I wondered, thinking of Frost’s poem “To a Moth Seen in Winter.”
Just as a spider web could be considered in a deeper context, this poem held reverberations for me. A moth, destined to die from the cold, lights on the poet’s hand, inspiring a reverie that has great emotional depth. The spider web I continued to examine from the shade of the screened porch and the unfortunate insects who ended up being the arachnid’s meal held echoes for me, as I felt caught in the web of a life that kept me from having the peace I dreamed was possible. If only, was the refrain that pressed itself into my mind over and over. It was as if Frost’s last three lines were as much a caveat for me as they were for that moth: no one could touch my life, much less save it, if I couldn’t figure out what it would take to solve my own dilemma. If only…
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- Posted from East Hampton, NY
