Dog tired deep into the morning

awake first thing after a restless night

when snatches of dreams where there were words

that might have been right for the sentence

there’s no getting past it — that one sentence

the sentence that’s been driving you mad for the last

year or so when you get up every morning

and go down to the basement study

switch on the computer

and see how the sentence is going—

it’ll be a great sentence

and will lead to somewhere

more interesting that’s if the sentence

ever gets finished, it’s at a new drafting stage—

there was the time the computer crashed

and the file with the sentence disappeared

all day, all night re-writing the sentence

(sometimes sitting in the backyard at dusk jotting notes

or a trip to the coast where the ocean can give

something of its energy), the sentence returned

to be worked on then down to the basement study

cleaning up, making the work place

just right to get cracking on the sentence

the headache from worrying about the sentence

should help you concentrate on writing—

once that one sentence is right the rest of

the book will almost write itself

and the opening sentence will illuminate

like a door opening in the morning;

there’s no getting past it—that one sentence

never seems nearer to being finished—

in the morning you get up after a restless night

wrestling with a verb

and go down to the basement study

switch on the computer

and see how the sentence is going—

it’ll be a great sentence when it’s done

and will lead to somewhere

more interesting that is, if the sentence

ever gets finished, it’s at another drafting stage

the trees will know what happens next

how later the day will grow more

solemn and serene.