If I Had To Do What I’ve Assigned My Students, Due Tomorrow, It Might Look Like This (With Comments)

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        [Comment: so far so good]

Warm, after all, for the 16 of us seated in late morning sun. I saw shadows of hairs on my hand—it was that bright. To the dome of the Legislature, a prize for shine.

[Comment: could cut it was that bright]

The first thing I saw, as I remember it now, was the stillness, a lake showing its quiet side. We all saw. From our swarm of sorrows—wifi frustrations, a fender-bender, a 15-minute wait for coffee—we found our listening, that blank page that let us alone, us and geese, Trans-Canada highway, flightpath to YQR.

          [Comment: past tense helps here, if I set up remembering]

The longer we sat, the more refined our sensing became—a shiver in the grass stem, peep-end of birdsongs, light let onto a shadow by tiny holes. As if, senses open, we’d revealed our finer workings.

          [Comment: someone’s going to ask what workings?]

It would seem odd to early humans observing—our backs to a stone or treetrunk, or folded into a patch of grass, scratching marks onto a surface we carry around. They would wonder if life itself isn’t a blank page on which we scribble our lifeforms.

[Comment: Now we seem a long way from the moment. And where are we again? Some re-location required?]

But that sounds a bit grand. Let me start again with this: we’re here because it pleases me and offers possibilities for writing and/or a moment of peace.

        [Comment: that's it? seems a bit let down?]

[Grade: After removing the name from this essay and forgetting it was mine, I give it an 82.]