Idea

Somewhere between the back of my fridge and the kitchen wall I got the idea to throw some kind of late-May poetry/travel event at Luther. Quick before my tan fades, just kidding, I could read new work and show pics to some of the Luther folks, who after all have a hand in enabling, as part of that institution, my Euro travel and writing. I could invite other poets to take part, since I’m not the only one just returned, thus folding into the scene a kind of open house social component. I.e., food and drink.

Today, 2-3 days after getting here, I think I’m tuning ever-more tightly into where I am. Lucky for us, a place is always new, but look there’s that rabbit in the parking lot, that sundown over the court house. One of these days will hit the 20s, which tree buds will take as permission to open and fling their contents over the streets. That might soften the air a little.

I keep thinking about how such-and-such a figure from Lisbon would see the place right now, on foot over the bridge toward the campus, say. I think I know better than to look back for too long, but one physical analogue to the Europe still in me might be a kid reluctant to turn his head from something behind him while a parent pulls relentlessly at his hand.

This sort of thing, again lucky for me, works with what I’m trying to write—second drafts of my travel Cities, as I call them, and a bunch of new ones here and there in Regina.

I suppose I’d offer a version of such musings at this event I’m considering, on my way to the red wine.