Late Summer and Cassandra Poems

I look at the calendar in a bit of shock this morning; I only have two full weeks of summer left.  Where has the time gone?

In some ways, it's been a wonderful summer.  We've gotten to see family and friends.  I've done a variety of creative activities.  I took a seminary class that left me wishing we could have some additional meeting time.  We went to a state park in Arkansas that was beautiful--the perfect amount of travel (and I am so grateful we've managed to stay out of airports).  I've met regularly with my quilt group that makes quilts for Lutheran World Relief and volunteered at Lutheridge, the church camp.

We're at the point of the summer where I think, wait, why didn't I do more?  I could have written a novel.  I should have written more poems.  I could have gotten poetry packets ready to submit when those elusive submission windows open in a month or two.  The one writing practice that I keep faithfully is blogging, and yet I rarely say, "I continued my blogging practice all summer!"

I love going back in my blog to see what I was doing last year, or the years before.  Occasionally, I discover an idea for a poem that I forgot I had.  And even more occasionally, I discover a rough draft that doesn't need much work to become a finished draft.

I have been writing a lot of Cassandra poems--what happens when a modern Cassandra sees her prophecies coming true?  Last summer, I was working on a poem about Cassandra volunteering at summer camp during a time of climate change; singing about Noah building an "Arky, arky" takes on a different tone.  

This week, I finished a poem about Cassandra coloring her hair.  Once I might have worried that I was writing too many Cassandra poems--what would it mean for a longer volume of poems?  Now I'm happy to be writing at all.

I'm in the mood to write a brand new poem.  Let me see if Cassandra speaks to me this week.