Eleventh Year

like seven
and three,
eleven is
a magical number
found mostly in deep forests or
thatched-roof cottages surrounded by
flower gardens and fluffy white sheep—
fairy tale numbers sparkling
in the worlds we dream up
word by word,
once upon this time
and this one
and this one too

Happy Eleventh Anniversary to this, my beloved poetry blog. This dailyish practice has created a deeper, richer life than I lived without it. If you are a dreamy word lover, I encourage you to begin. Find a time of day that you are quiet and alone and begin to play with words. Treat yourself to a small notebook and a pen and carry them through your day, tucked into a pocket so you can write yourself a memo when a poem walks by. Don’t ignore them and more and more will come to you. Then—and somehow this is an important part—find a platform and post them there, little boats of words sailing out into the ocean of the internet. It doesn’t matter if anyone else knows. You know. The poems know. Go ahead. You won’t be sorry that you gathered the words and stirred them around and tumbled them out onto paper and built those letters into poems. And if you do? Tell me—I’d love to hear and celebrate your word adventures with you.