Poem for the week: A Perfect Day in Georgian Bay

A Perfect Day in Georgian Bay

April may be the cruelest month of the year

(so says Thomas Stearns Eliot), but October

 has to be the most joyous.

Tuesday, October 29, 2019, up at 5 A. M.,

made coffee (with a drop of Anisette and honey),

and ready to write my daily quota.

“Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” said Woland, the

Devil in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, 

and Chapter 20 of my story-in-progress—

The Fourth Corner of the Abyss, an elucidation

of my high school poem “Noman” that I did not

apprehend until fifty years later.

And here I am today, in beautiful Georgian Bay,

breaking new ground into the mystery of why

God called me for a reckoning.

I put on bread dough in our bread-maker for

tonight’s focaccia/pizza dinner—one roasted red

pepper, and the other hot pickled eggplant,

And I went back to work on my chapter, terrified

of not knowing where my story was going, but

trusting my muse to break new ground.

There are few joys in life as deeply satisfying as the

revelations of creative writing, and one came to me

that broke the impasse of my story— O, bliss!

Knowing where my story was going, I took my cue

from “Papa” Hemingway and dressed for my day’s

leafing, the terror of my impasse relinquished.

They fell like snowflakes yesterday from the maple

trees, oak, birch, poplar, and one beech, and the yard

was blanketed in yellow, gold, and crimson;

But I welcomed my time blowing leaves, stopping to

jot notes in my Indigo Hemingway Notebook, and

reading my weekend papers—O, heavenly bliss!

And when Penny came home, we sat on our front deck with

a tipple of wine and sherry, waiting on our focaccia/pizza;

and then I watched the news, and a movie on Netflix.

Just another fall day in beautiful Georgian Bay!