My blog has been sitting on cinder blocks in the front yard for over a year now. Neighbors drive by and shake their heads, “what a shame,” they mutter. It has sat through five major snow storms and a short summer, the gleam of it’s chrome no longer glinting. It is a sad, neglected thing. And I had such good intentions for it, too. Couldn’t wait to get it back on the road, humming and shiny down the main drag with my hair blowing through the open window….

I am not the kind of person to let my life pile up into a junkyard. I have never let my life get away from me like this, for all to see.

It doesn’t matter that we walked away from one house into our forever house over the span of a year; or that we needed to watch our baby grow into an imaginative, talkative, loving and compassionate bookworm of a 3-year-old girl; or that I have taken on more clients—the truth is, writing is what is at my very core. And how dare I neglect my very core.

So here I am, taking the keyboard by the reigns to slow life down a bit, and free all those rusty words. It’s as simple as that. I can do this. I can be in charge of my own mess. It’s Spring after all, and Mercury is in retrograde. No better time to enter back into the world clutter-free and strong at my core.

There. I made a vow. Procrastinators everywhere are standing up from their club chairs to give me a standing ovation. Neighbors are driving by smiling at the daffodils and irises. And I’m purring down the highway in my newly-polished car listening to Coltraine, green meadows reflected in my shades.

Hello again. Hello.

Last night's poetry at the Nevada County Poetry Series' monthly reading showed me that poetry is definitely an art. And if my poetry is an art, it would be a Pre-Raphaelite painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Last night, the poet's voice was a beautiful song in a different language that I loved listening to...in the first 15 minutes. Then it became an abstract painting that hurt your eyes if you looked at it too long.

Don't get me wrong, I love modern art and almost minored in Art History. I can appreciate the stark simpleness of Motherwll's dark blocks. And I love the movement and color in Kandisky's paintings. Paul Klee's work is humorous and lighthearted, even though his figures aren't recognizable to the human eye, but still, they connect to my heart somehow.

As the poet last night continued into her 20-minute poem of unconnected words and unintelligible images, I longed for her to repeat the part about the sand between her bare toes, and the faces of the shells looking up to the moon., I wanted a Pre-Raphaelite painting of a nude woman standing on her tip-toes reaching up into the peach tree, green meadows all around her. That's the kind of poetry that appeals to me. That is the kind of poetry I strive to write.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder, what kind of poetic mind can create the former type of poetry? Are their feelings so complex that they can only be conveyed in left-brained abstract form? Or are they simply using their artistic freedom to craft an abstract formation of words? Does it appeal to an audience? Unlike me, does the audience understand it? Does it touch their hearts?

Like the Pre-Raphaelite painters, I strive to bring poetry down to earth. This is where we breathe, love, see. I want to experience earth’s sensual pleasures with all my senses. Instead of imagining what the blushed fuzz of a peach feels like, I want to touch it with my fingertips, or the skin of my cheek.

Yes, poetry—like art—is subjective.  That’s why the world of art is so diverse and inclusive. I choose to read, write and appreciate “pretty” poetry, because that is what sings to my heart. And in the end, when I contribute my poetry to the world, if one person can stand back and say “ahhhhh”, it doesn’t matter that it is just one brushstroke of color on the poetic canvas.

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