Hydrant 23 || The Manner Language Stumbles at Night

•••
The goal of freewriting projects often falls into the territory of discovering self. Or falling into memory to define one's self. Through a rambling pattern of words and imagery. Broken phrases and de-constructed sentence forms. Which is why I often use these hydrant photos as a starting point— almost none of the photographs can be traced to a specific epiphany moment. I can meander through any odd assortment of phrases— a sea of language. My newest project deals with folktales, or the logic of magic realism, set in a current, a stream of social thinking from a fictitious village somewhere in Europe, thatched roofs and white plaster walls, seaside location perhaps— but not a relevancy for the plot because I want the character to wander on foot through the typical wooded conflict— confusion of shadows and tricks of the light, lack of light, when mice and beetles roam, owls and bats. The manner language stumbles at night when the mind is sleepy, hesitant. Waiting for to idea to find you, not the other way around—

••• So I pick up a book at random, Stephen Dobyns Heat Death, remove the bookmark from the title poem, page 67, section eight: a reaffirmation of a fragmented, older idea which corresponds to my current reality, (but taken out of context):

think of it as a child in a red coat. Think of
that child on a flat acre of woods and the whole
acre pried and cut from the earth like a table top

—that child is my newest poem series— that child is my son on his adventure— that child explains my new direction in writing.