Before Sunrise

This past June, I took an online writing class taught by Natalie Goldberg, based on her book Writing Down the Bones. It was excellent! One of the things she says over and over is writing to try to get to what she calls “first thoughts.” That is, thoughts that haven’t passed through any filters of sensibility or acceptability or respectability. These thoughts have energy precisely because they’re unfiltered. I have a highly developed filter for EVERYTHING that comes out of my mouth or, as it turns out, out of my fingers into a pen.

So far I’ve found only one space where I can access these kinds of thoughts: when I wake up in the middle of the night. So far, I’ve written a few poems by this method. Poetry in the day still seems foreign to me, but somehow, in the dark, barely awake, it comes more naturally.

I wrote the first one on August 17, 2020 at just after 2:00am. I was a little afraid of where it was going at first, but not awake or afraid enough to stop.

Before Sunrise

Before sunrise
I swallow my ego.
A big pill with sharp corners,
it scratches my throat
on the way down
to the basement.
Cold, dank cobwebs
cover my skin,
cover my heart.
Let the light in!
The first rays of sun
burn through,
scorching my forearms,
my neck,
my soul.
Black tufts of former knowledge,
former conceit,
are all that remain.
Underneath,
new earth,
new ideas,
new me.

 

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash