Friday Draft: Fourteen Hours Early

30 degrees ~ pure white snow + brilliant sun = blinding light, some melting in direct sunlight, refreezing sure for tonight

Dear Readers, my regular programming is all fouled up in the wake of AWP and two snow days.  I did spend the better part of yesterday and this morning catching up on prep work for my online classes.  Now, I need to map out unit two of my on campus classes.  So glad I didn't plan the whole semester, given this wild weather ride we've been on.

Still, I found myself this afternoon with energy to spare, a rare occurrence on a regular Thursday.  I decided to work with one of the poems I started drafting on the plane ride back from AWP.  I didn't write a poem last week b/c I was in DC and I've been feeling a little itchy about it.  Also, it looks like I'll have to go in to the office for a few hours tomorrow morning to take care of some business disrupted by snow, and that will knock out my regular drafting time.

It's still brutally cold here, and my office is one of the colder rooms in the house, so I'm on the sofa with my hot water bottle, two cats, a space heater, and my laptop.  All very unusual for drafting.  I credit the fact that I did come up with a complete draft to the fact that the lines I jotted down on Sunday had so much energy going for them already.  I did in fact title the poem "Cautionary Tale for Girls Caught Up in the Machinery" and it begins:

Once there was a girl who dreamed of tools

 Like most of the other Midwestern girl tales I've been working on, there are gender issues, parent-child issues, boundary issues, rural issues, and what I hope are some subtle sexual awakening issues.  Not to terrify anyone, but the girl in this poem gets "pulled into the belly of that greasy beast" (a tractor) as her transformation moment.  What can I say?  News of horrifying farm accidents permeated my childhood and young adulthood.  Those images do not fade.