WABASH MAGAZINE | WINTER/SPRING 2004


Beginner’s Workshop: What Shall I Write About?

By Donald W. Baker H’57
  March 25, 2004

I haven’t been there
and there can be no guide
but I will tell you this:
once you start to walk
its squares and alleys
or better still explore
its utility tunnels
where vein and nerve connect
you’ll find you’ve lived there
all your life

Open your Eye then
to the tired woman
driving on the boulevard
the old man
frowning from his window
especially the sleeping lovers
behind their motel wall—
Listen: you know them all
your hand has always carried
their names and voices

Set them carefully down
how lovely
how precisely true
Now: take up your pencil
and begin


from A Branch of Beach Plum, used with permission of Sugar Creek/Tickenoak Books

 


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