drafting "a birthday poem"

this week has been a week of hard writing.  i've struggled to write everyday, some days writing shamefully little. i had three false-start drafts, never getting off the ground, not worth pursuing really. last month was really a writing high for me--i wrote a lot of very promising drafts, worked in new forms, got some good editing done on my manuscript. so coming off of that i've floundered a bit.

its a busy few weeks too--relatives in town last weekend, coming back next weekend for my zu's first birthday (?!), lots of time with friends, activities with the new church. all good things, but my introverted self was needing some quiet today, some time alone in the stillness.

after the baby went down for her afternoon nap, i told my husband i just needed some time and escaped to the solitude of the sunroom to read, write, look out the window, enjoy the quiet.

and then finally i got my draft done for the week. a birthday poem (working title) for zu, mainly about the transition to winter and what we pass on. that has been a subject of interest for me lately, so this poem is in that same vein as "discipline"--what we pass on intentionally, unintentionally.

i tend to write medium length (half to one page) poems and this one kept meandering along. i feel like its a bit more southern and drawling than what i've written lately, an easy rhythm to it. revising will be a matter of adding in some places, cutting in others, and lineation, which i haven't done yet. some poems i write in lines from the beginning, some in scrawling long-hand, one paragraph over pages and pages in my writing notebook. 

the next few weeks are going to be busier still--birthdays, parties, travelings--so while i'm planning to keep to writing everyday, i'm going to cut myself a little slack on how many poems come out of that--i think if i get one out of the next two weeks, that will be an accomplishment i'm happy with