Mother says she doesn’t see the point of “all these writers writing,”
though music always stirs her, body and soul.

I’m a poor singer and a worse piano player —but I can’t wait to sneak
down to the lake to lose myself in what makes me feel alive.

Mother, with her wary, brilliant, unforgiving brain, can’t believe
her poems, or mine, are wonderful, or even possible.

What if she’s right? What if every word I scribble is a feeble, wasted
attempt to become part of the universe?

What if I’m nothing more than a scrap of flesh, writing sentences
that will never breathe like water or wind?

That’s why I give myself to lakes and skies that feed my work and play,
faithful child of those gods of words and worlds.