Less is More

When I write poetry, I try my best to convey my thoughts and or feelings with the least number of words. Then, I save, close the document, and let it be for several days, sometimes even weeks, before I return to read it. When I do, I scale it down again, remove anything excessive; save, close, and repeat the process until I capture exactly what it is I wanted to describe in the first place. Some poems make it, many don’t.

My writing space reflects this less is more attitude as well. A desk, a lamp, a whiteboard for to-do lists and snippets of inspiration, thesauruses, a drawer for my favorite pens and post-it notes, a coaster to hold hot tea, my laptop. There are two large windows overlooking the land I live on allowing for lots of light.

I also have a journal to write in because sometimes I revert back to when I wrote everything longhand. You know, before computers, the internet, cellphones. I did have a typewriter then, but I didn’t use that until I had perfected or at least edited the heck out of my poems before typing them and using white-out more times than I want to admit.

Less is more has become a daily mantra; a discipline to get rid of things I no longer need or use and to not let things accumulate into piles of the unnecessary. To be content with what I have. To say what I want to say. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Mare

The path climbs, noises

fall away. Two hawks fly

overhead. To my right,

in a flowering laurel, a bluebird

eyes the terrain

as a wind lifts my hair.

When the path levels

I look down, the lake

in full view. A turquoise gem

in the midst of grey-black rock,

red cedars, blue spruce

a cobalt sky.

Ahead, the path rolls

in undulating waves

of color. I let out a breath

I did not know I was holding

and quietly remember

you.

How did you find solace this week?

Sharon

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