I write because I want to remember
At night words come to me in dreams unbidden, sometimes in entire phrases or stanzas. Memories too aslant, diffuse, messy, but other times quite singular and clear. I write because I want to remember. Visitations or visions? Not likely to a beat up old journalist with creaky knees leaky memory, and -- says current thinking -- steeped in unearned privilege akin to plunder. Still, I write them when I wake trying to hold true to these nighttime visits no matter what muse, spirit or mordant corner of my psyche is their source. It doesn't matter, really, if anyone else reads them or cares, although that would be lovely. What matters is paying homage, by remembering, to what is whispered to me in the night.