The Benefits of a Writing with a Knee Injury

I exercised my way into a knee injury, and turned my writing life upside-down. That’s because I do a lot of dictating into my phone while walking. And now I’m not walking much. I also use stair-climbing as part of my thinking process. Doing chores in our house means stairs, and that’s some of my best thinking time. Though now I have more stair-thinking time, as I take it one step — good foot, bad foot — at a time.

I’m doing more of my thinking seated. Poetry and editing, however, seem to benefit from my staying seated. Fiction, not as much, because thinking of those plot twists requires me to be in motion.

Many of my poems were composed while walking and dictating, but yesterday I started a new practice of sitting poems. Even better if I’m sitting in an unusual places, such as a hot car while waiting for my husband to come out of the store, or on my deck while watering plants while sitting down. Instead of walking through it, sitting in a lovely field. Under a giant oak that tells me it loves me by dropping twigs on my head. (See my book Earth Lessons for more on giant oaks.) These are my new writing spots, and one yielded this poem.

Solace of a Lone Mountaintop

The catenary curve firm against a pale blue sky
gives me solace, rising above the parking lot,
the oak-crowned peak
acts like it has every business
to pair into all these lives we run between.

Solace of the solid is a dependable thing,
as is solace of errand running,
or waiting in a too-warm car for your spouse.

Solace of the ordinary sometimes
suddenly stills, like a movie
stopping the moment
to become symphonic and swelling.

Solace in the crevices
of concrete, even in those tiny particulars
of yellow, five-petaled flowers poking up.

There’s solace to be found anywhere
you need it, any moment the one
that stays and becomes

solace in the heart’s
inexplicable levitations.

Find my poetry collections here.