Spring?

It is true that it was in the 70s at the beginning of March, the week before I wrote this poem. Since then, it has snowed several times. I want to share a couple of photos that my wife, JoAnn, took after I wrote this poem. Today is the first “official” day of Spring, and we got a dusting of snow. It’s pretty unusual to get as much snow as we have gotten this late in the season (sigh). I am ready for Spring-like (or even better, actual, real Spring) days in the 70s.

If you really knew me, you would know that I am a weather freak. I enjoy recording our annual rainfall, and have been doing that for years. So far, since last July 1, we’ve had roughly 64” of rain. That’s almost 5 ½ FEET of rain in just over five months. No frickin’ wonder I’m ready for Spring!

It was in the 70s last week

It was in the 70s last week
Sky blue as robin’s eggs
Cherry blossoms bursting
Pink eye candy

Yesterday it snowed
Ice white clouds
Coating plum blossoms
In sparkling death shrouds

Daffodils struck down
Like innocent bystanders
At a terrorist’s convention
Fresh yellow petals frozen open

Winter’s savage grace
Dancing on the graves
Of the early risers

It’ll be in the 70s next week
The decaying daffodils
Will melt easily
In the hungry sun

Snow forgotten
Like Yesterday’s Tears

Steve Ryals

Color it Done

JoAnn asked me to write something about how I’m feeling now that Drunk with Wonder is finished. Not finished as in printed and available, but finished in that it’s at the indexer’s, and that the cover is finished, and that we have the ISBN number, and the Catalog in Publication data. No more re-writes, no more “let’s just add this piece,” we’re done.

Anyhow, I’m feeling into all that, and I guess part of me finds it hard to accept, as though I thought this was going to continue forever, safely cocooned in my shell of “I’m working on the book. It’ll be out, well, later – sometime soon – whenever.” That time, that “later” is now at hand. I have to birth this baby. I must color it done, call it a day, perhaps even call it a book.

While the “official” publication date is still some months away (perhaps August 1, maybe as late as September 1) the book will be available in E-Book format as soon as I integrate the index and order form into the back and set it up on a site that accepts payment via our PayPal account. I’m thinking that could happen by April 7^th. I hope to have the book to the printer by April 10^th, and in my hands by the first week of May. (We’ll see. I know only too well that nature sides with the hidden flaw, and that if you want to make the Goddess laugh you just tell Her your plans. Still….)

And I just realized that I’ve wondered off the subject at hand, which is how I’m feeling about all this. Well, like Bambi caught in the headlights, I guess. I’ve been so focused for so long (or so it seems) on one version or another of this project, I’m hearing this giant sucking sound, as though a black hole is coming to take me away. Hardly true, of course.

There are a million details still to sort out, marketing plans to hatch, a PR campaign, a study guide, yada yada. And still, knowing there is all this to do, I feel a bit like a boat adrift. This book has been my anchor, my “raison d’etra”, and now it’s time to let it go. So I’m giving myself permission to savor the moment, to say “Well done!” and feel the distinctly warm and cheery glow of accomplishment, of completion. And so it is….