There are so many ways to see what’s different about the same thing.
The day after Christmas we got a light dusting of snow, but it was snow!
The same day I learned that my Amazon book, An Accidental Diary, was finally for sale in paperback and could be delivered by December 30th.
The hardback and Kindle have been on sale for two weeks but since Amazon prints the books they sell, the hardback wasn’t available for delivery until mid January. I couldn’t wait. I wanted to hold my book in my hands so I bought a copy.
It is amazing to learn how many different ways there are to see the same thing.
An Accidental Diary is a sonnet a week for a year, but the book wasn’t conceived of until almost 20 years later when I read each week’s entry sequentially and I discovered it really was a wild subconscious diary created over a year of transition.
It is really a game of hide and seek. It was what I had kept hidden from myself back then and what years later would happen: fond recollections and musings on loss, lust, love of family, my fear of dying alone, a sad divorce and, back then, even efforts to quit smoking.
It was drawn from a grab bag of everything in my life in order to meet a Sunday night deadline of a sonnet a week for a year. The book’s introduction defines the scope but the book does it best.
As I was waiting for my book delivery and thinking about what to write here today I looked out at the remaining snow and I wondered how this little collection of often humorous poems would introduce itself and I was amused at how the first sonnet does exactly that.
There are so many ways to see what’s different about the same thing:
City Snow
From a four o’clock sky the first snowflakes fall
To settle down on trafficked city streets.
Each snowflake falls separately, till all
Conspire to hide the city like a secret.
The last street lights go on, and the snow reflects
Upon the domiciliary landscape.
The more snow falls the less you really expect
The city to be what it’s supposed to be:
It becomes a beautiful blinking shape,
An image of slowing inactivity,
Slowing into snow drifts. It snows very late.
A pronouncement of peace subdues the city.
The drifting snow controls the city violence
With a voice made entirely of silence.
Here’s a link to get the book and give it a read if you are so inclined:
https://robertbowiejr.com/booklink/