Writer's Block

It's not a block exactly, more like fear of what will come up.

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." - Robert Frost

It sure is hard to go there sometimes.

Last night this poem came to me at the perfect moment, from Alice Walker's "I Said to Poetry."

I said to Poetry: 'I'm finished
with you.'
Having to almost die
before some weird light
comes creeping through
is no fun.

True, it's not always fun... but the fear is much worse than what happens when I take a deep breath, let go, and see what happens. Natalie Goldberg said, when all else fails, just "keep the hand moving." I get up every morning and scratch my pen across lined paper until something happens. It's as hard as meditating, this getting up with the alarm when I want to stay cozy under the blanket... and as rewarding.

Today I'll give the last word to Audre Lorde, from her poem, "A Litany for Survival."

... and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid.

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.