Deadlines and dirt

There’s one week left before the deadline for Lyrical Iowa and some of the national poetry organizations submission deadline.  I’ve had a plan for getting my poetry together and edited and all shiny in more than enough time to get my submission sent in.  Have I sent it in yet?  Of course not.

I’ve barely looked at my poetry over the past couple weeks.  I’ve picked out some promising rough drafts, typed them up, and printed them out so I could have them in one place while I edit them.  They are even saved on my USB drive so I could edit them in word.  All I have managed to do so far, however, is realize I write about rural Iowa a lot.

How many poems can there be about fields in Iowa at dawn?  Several notebooks worth, that’s how many. 

On the plus side, I am still inspired by the landscape every morning. 

Every day there is something different to draw out my inner writer and start scribbling on notebook paper.  Some days it's the fall of light across the stubby fields.  Others, it's the distant scattered farm house lights that echo the stars above.  And that's just in winter.  Wait until spring gets here and everything starts growing.  It's amazing how the first blush of green plants poking up out of the black earth can change a landscape.  

For the rest of the week, I will sit in my little apartment and revisit those early mornings, polishing them to the jewels I know they are.