Today's Draft, Brought to You by Lucie Brock-Broido and Sheldon Cooper

42º ~ slight warming, still a chance of rain, all grey, all quiet


Well, here I am, practicing BIC (butt in chair) and being present. The world was fighting hard against writing time today. I was cluttered up with thoughts of the errands I need to run and the urge to up and do them now, now, now, when, really, there is no rush. So, I fought and stayed in the chair.

I read some more Lucie Brock-Broido. I'm still working on Stay, Illusion. Today, I read "Attitude of Lion," amid others, and in this poem, Brock-Broido draws on the elements of animal heraldry. I learned something new by investigating her use of "sejant" and "couchant" in the poem. While I knew that animals were depicted in family crests, flags, seals, etc. in different "attitudes," different positions, I had never learned the history and meaning of this. So, I read up on them all and then returned to the poem with a new appreciation.

I read a few more poems, but none that held me as much. In the back of mind, I kept thinking of an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Yes, you read that correctly, The Big Bang Theory. I was thinking of the episode where Leonard tells how he came to live with Sheldon and to sign "the roommate agreement." In this episode, we learn that the apartment has a flag: "a gold lion rampant on a field of azure." That phrase "rampant on a field of azure" just kept repeating through my head.

So, I turned to my notebook and wrote "I, Rampant on a Field of Azure" and decided that made a great title. I imagined myself taking the rampant posture of an animal on a flag and sort of wrote a self-portrait, I suppose. It begins:

Fierce fingers splayed,
            ready for the raking
                        slash across my enemy's throat,
I lead with my hands.


So there you go: one poetry lion (Lucie Brock-Broido) mixed with one popular culture reference and voila!