I found a note on my phone (in the cloud) from years ago that I forgot I had. It’s a compilation of some of my favorite lines of Alice Walker’s poetry.

I read through them all tonight after I got home from work. Here’s a sampling:

“Alone out there, absorbed …
a slouched back against the shoulders
of the world.”
– from “Light Baggage”

“I carry within myself
the only known keys
to my death – to unlock life, or close it shut
forever.”
– from “On Stripping Bark From Myself”

“When we talk about it nothing to still my fear of his fear is said.”
– from “Threatened”

“To love and be loved
in absentia
is joy enough for me.”
– from “These Mornings of Rain”

I am tired after a 13-hour workday. My furniture is lying in bits and pieces throughout my apartment. The clickety clack of restless dog nails on a wood floor is driving me irrationally batty. And I don’t feel like writing even though I feel like I should.

But that last excerpt from “These Mornings of Rain” fills me with warmth. And I’m going to take that to bed with me. And sleep well.