Creative Energy

A few hours ago I sat with this laptop empty of words. I looked at the half-dozen garden shimmers I had jotted over the weekend. Their lights had gone out.

Outside the sunporch window, a branch of the Washington Hawthorne that had broken in the early morning rainstorm beckoned me.

Should I desert my laptop? I remembered the advice of an editor when I was stalled on my first book. “Follow the direction your creative energy is leading you,” she had said.

I collected a branch lopper and a hacksaw and followed my creative urge to the broken branch.

As I carted it past the River Birches, I noticed their lower branches were drooping too low.

I lopped off lower branches, then got the patio chair and hacksawed higher ones.

The birches have fewer branches now. But they look taller. They needed the clutter removed so they could reach for the sky.

And so did I.