A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Two-Hundred-And-Two

There are times when I write a poem and I discover something new that seems better than the rest of the poem, or at least, as if I want to keep playing with it.  Tonight, for example, one poem I wrote contains a metaphor that seems very good, seems to fit with an image I have been attempting to express for a long while, and I am not certain if the initial poem itself is all that great, or if it can be made better as it is, but I do see that metaphor as a thing I will have to continue evolving, whether it is in drafting this particular poem again or taking it off into other work.  It may be that I do both.  That is certainly the most likely thing, as I doubt I will not return to this poem again, just as I doubt that I won't pick that metaphor up in other poems down the line.  It may be that it becomes richer and shifts in ways that make it feel powerful to have it developing through multiple poems, or it may be that this piece is just a small step towards another work that won't even resemble the original in most ways.  It is impossible to say, and it does not really matter.  Even if their is nothing else in the poem, or in any of what I wrote tonight, that one metaphor is something I know is valuable for me.  Their is always a lot of work that must be done to get those things.  It can feel as if a lot of the writing is a waste, is all just garbage.  That may even be true at times, but even if it is, I feel as if those pieces needed to be written, that effort had to be made.  In part, it is just the need to be present, to be ready when it is the right moment, but their is also the truth that the good stuff often only comes after having exhausted so much else.  Maybe, it is that so much of writing is just letting down the guard.  Writing so much is a way to wear down all the resistance so that something can come out that is less filtered.  Or, maybe, it is more that it forces me to try all sorts of things, to keep putting stuff out, and eventually, just because of the volume, something will come that is right.  But, whatever it is, one important part is to notice what seems to be working, to find the gems that appear and cherish them.  Maybe I am not always good at that.  I do wonder.  I write a lot and don't always think about the poems again unless I am revisiting them, and I know that many of them are just me letting loose on the page in the moment, and that can result in some great stuff, or in useless ranting.  In the end, I like to think that I have a pretty decent ratio of good work, but that is only in comparison to myself, to the amount of what I write that seems, to me, to be of merit, and that can still be just one metaphor.  I don't know, that seems like a decent thing to come away with from a single day's work.