The Snakeskin Road

Every writer has a muse
to probe the right side of the brain,
the forgotten truth
like the secret stash in a gourd,

an elusive wisp of memory
that has no name.  

I think for me it's thunder and conflict—

the fuchsia sunrise out one window

and a drowning sky the other,

conflicting scenes a writer commits to memory

      (if he is wise)

to set a stage.

But don't open with the weather,

the naysayers say. 

The gravel road shimmers like snakeskin in the rain.

It glances off the windows

like paint from the brush of a master.

Could we open with that?

It fills the nesting leaves of the cabbage

and the newly planted lettuce, thankful.

Would one care about that?

 

Clouds collide like passing freight trains
as summer gives way to autumn,
one pushing aside the other, like leaves
swept from the sidewalk
and spiders from corners.

We write in small spaces
and in the rain and in the dark
and in the morn before the house awakes.
When writing, we don't hear the rain
or see the spiders and the snakeskin road,
or care that the sky has turned from  fuchia to gray.