It has happened at last. I’m not talking about the latest terror attack or presidential candidate gaffe or our vacation. I’m talking about my baby.
Not the one that graduated this spring. The one I’ve been trying to hatch for more years than I care to admit.
It was a long labor, and longer waiting for one of about ninety slowly-sent submissions to become an acceptance. But eventually, it did. Now, in the past twenty-four hours, I’ve had to catch up on work, write for my church, let family and friends hear my news, plan a couple of local book launches, and marvel at the two boxes full of books that are lounging in the middle of the dining room table like they own the place. (I won’t share the state of my house right now, but those boxes are the least of it.) But it feels like that sweaty, slightly breathless bliss of standing on the little mountain you’ve just topped and surveying a panorama of tree-lined mountains in mist.
I’m just grateful it’s arrived at last–thanks in no small measure to the many poet-friends who mentored it out of me–that I’m happy to scoop it up in its buntings until I remember it’s really just words on paper. It won’t close the equity gap; it won’t provide clean water; it won’t end war.
But it’ll offer forty-eight poems to the world–whatever that’s worth.
When you write because you can’t imagine not writing, the boxes on the table are a surprise inheritance. Almost.
Share this:
The Real McCoy 
To disregard the saying, ” You can’t judge a book by its cover,” I’m betting the words inside are as uplifting as the outside.
Congratulations!
LikeLike