A Letter To The Editor

For My Editor:

The sculpted clutter of neglected projects waits for my attention.
If I could only--- Enter as many passing whimsical topics
on putting myself to task and being focused.

Sometimes, I reassure myself I shall take an afternoon
and set out to the coffee shop.
The front window of the diner for a light lunch and revising drafts.
Anywhere I can sit and work. Just pen and paper.
Letting myself put order to projects.

Half-jotted concepts with potential word choices
and quick scattered sequence impressions
splashed with jigsaw puzzle disorder on the paper.

I confess my fundamental achievements
tend to present themselves
while I wait in a laundromat.

Between washer and dryer cycles,
I think of all the things I could be doing
if I didn't have to wait for laundry.

Too short to go elsewhere without being rushed
and long enough to grow restless waiting.

I would write a letter, and the ideas would start to dwell.
Ideas I had not disturbed since who knows when I put them on some paper.
Incomplete perceptions I left at home in a notebook I misplaced.

A summary of a project forgotten about starts forming in a personal letter.
A sense of obligation as in work to be done.
Purpose and meaning that require my attention to form.

Writing is a self-rewarding involvement
where I cannot expect another to appreciate
the satisfactions and torments of being "in progress.".
The initial thought to finished version
is a consuming conscious effort to exact an impression.

Yet I have left these endeavors stagnant
after a troublesome moment in my life
and have not returned to take care of my unfinished work.

My editor recognizes that suffering awareness of circumstances
I have felt abandoned in my endeavors.
I realize although we are apart some grand distance,
She wishes to help me in my endeavors.

A lost line in a revision that she smiled upon in a draft
will be commented on afterwards.
But not before I say I am ready to proof a final version
as it may alter what I choose to revise.

The revisions have begun at an awkward time
where we are apart and I feel unsettled in my daily endeavors
much less returning to writing.

I believe in her.
To entrust her with what I feel too fraile
to complete without her advice.
In knowing she wishes that I find fulfillment.