Good morning!
It rained last night, big, booming thunderstorms that woke us up. Here’s what I found when I walked outside early this morning.
Thus begins a new feature at The Writerly Life: At a Loss for Words, a series of photo essays where the visuals speak for themselves. I hope you’ll enjoy.
If you do, please like and leave a comment!
Lily unfolding
Japanese maple 1
Magnolia holding rainwater
A couple of Monday Discoveries for my poet friends: first, a poem by Stephen Dunn. Maybe I’m drawn to this poem because there’s a story inherent in it. To read all of “Sea Level,” go to Poetry Daily:
Scrub pines, Everglades, May 2010
Sea Level
Down from the mountains of Appalachia
and the highs of new love
I’ve come across the extended monotonies
of interstates, back to where
scrub pines stand small at sea level.
There’s the house I left for good
(if forever can ever be good), . . .
And here’s a link to a new-to-me online poetry journal, Plume. Go exploring . . . Some outstanding writers (and good poems) here, among them Sharon Olds, Billy Collins, Linda Pastan, and many, many others. Enjoy!
Call to action: What inspires you and gets your creative juices flowing? Share a favorite source or link (or a newly discovered one) in a comment.
I’m not in the habit of sharing “raw” work, but I just discovered The Sunday Whirl, 
which offers a weekly list of random words and challenges writers to do something with them–a poem, a short fiction piece. To put “new” words out there feels risky, but it’s a great exercise, so here goes. I used all the words in Wordle 59 in this little piece of fiction:
After Chelsea and Mark split up, she left town and rented a room in a cheap motel across the street from the beach. It wasn’t far, but just far enough she thought Mark wouldn’t find her. She lay crumpled on the bed, going through boxes of tissue. The bruise had begun to fade now, going yellowish. Her ribs hurt less, it was easier to draw breath, but still. He never should have gone that far. Who would have thought they would crash and burn that way? She had tiptoed around the edges of his anger, tried to chisel away his defenses, but Mark basked in the glow of argument, he’d beat her every time, not with his fists—at least not until now—but with words. He could nail her, pierce her like that fly in a poem she’d read in high school, pinned and wriggling on the wall.
When somebody knocked at the door, she crouched on the other side of the bed. It was late afternoon; the sun filtered through the ugly drapes and cast patterns on the walls.
“Chelsea? You in there?” Mark. She thought her lungs would burst, holding in her breath that way, trying not to answer.
Gerry Wilson 