Hunting for a poem
A huge thank you to all the readers and subscribers and followers for the congratulations and support of my new chapbook Punctuated. This Substack is the first time I’ve shared my poetry, each week, with friends and subscribers. I’ve published quite a bit in journals but I never shared my poetry regularly with the people in my life. Your comments and thoughts on the poems, not just here, but out in the world when we’ve met face to face, mean so much to me. And all the poets and writers on Substack are part of a community I hadn’t expected to find; I’m grateful to be a part of this.
On to this week’s post …
We’re spending this weekend in Bodega Bay. We stay at a funky little cottage called “The Barnhouse,” right on the banks of Salmon Creek. We’ve been going there for years, and it’s the perfect spot to spend hours reading by the wood stove after walks on the beach. There’s no wifi, and you can’t get a cellular signal unless you go stand on one of the sand dunes at the top of the beach and hold your phone just so—emails and posts and phone calls and texts will have to wait until we get back on Monday.
I wrote this week’s poem at Bodega Bay the last time we were there in 2021. It was a chilly November morning and Josh had gone into town so I had the cottage to myself. I was sitting in the tiny sunroom looking out at Salmon Creek. California was in the middle of a drought, and Salmon Creek was so low it hardly made it to the ocean. It was quiet that morning, but there was a snowy egret out on the creek. I hadn’t written anything in a while and was hunting for something to write about …
Hunting for a poem
Like the lone
snowy egret
hunts for breakfast
in the shallows of
Salmon Creek,
brackish from years
of drought.
Last week’s
atmospheric river,
the first rain since
winter and it’s
November now.
Fog drips from the eaves.
The ocean churns
on the other side
of the dunes.
Now I sit,
coffee in hand,
on the cottage’s
small sun porch
reaching for words
to feed a morning.
The egret
takes flight,
following the curve
of the creek
that has to stretch farther
to reach the ocean
every year. 
This poem was originally published in One Art in 2023. One Art is a fabulous site for poetry. Founded by
and edited by Mark and Louisa Schnaithmann, they publish new poetry every day. I highly recommend checking them out at https://oneartpoetry.com/ . I usually start my morning by reading the poems they’ve published that day; it’s a much better way to start the day than scrolling through the news!Mark also has his own Substack,
, full of facts and musings about everything really, and he also features guest essays about poetry and publishing.You can get my chapbook, Punctuated, at Bottlecap Press.
‘Reaching for words
to feed a morning.’ Lovely 🤍
Hi LeeAnn, The Barnhouse cabin sounds tantalizing! As the hoopla of years long gone hold little appeal now, such a secluded place would be a dream come true. Thanks for the magic of your share.