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Creative Consciousness
Tom Waits: When you’re writing you’re conjuring. It’s a ritual, and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you’re inviting into the room. In that sense it’s something like a séance. You’re hoping it will rain in the room and you’re dressed for it. Which is always a complete act of faith…
— The New York Times Interview
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The Trees
In my front yard live three crepe myrtles, crying trees
We once called them, not the shadiest but soothing
During a break from work in the heat, their cool sweat
Falling into us. I don’t want to make more of it.
I’d like to let these spindly things be
Since my gift for transformation here proves
Useless now that I know everyone moves the same
Whether moving in tears or moving
To punch my face. A crepe myrtle is
A crepe myrtle. Three is a family. It is winter. They are bare.
It’s not that I love them
Every day. It’s that I love them anyway.
— Jericho Brown
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