Cold, mossy gravestones whisper laments as I stroll past them in the shadowy pathways on an autumn morning. The tree swaying outside my apartment shouts poetry through the window. The pavement beneath my mobile feet croons a love song to the beauty of the late afternoon sunlight that dances across its craggy surface. Squirrels leaping across wires recite snippets of stories. I experience words everywhere I go: sometimes they are new combinations, asking or demanding to be written down. Stories waiting to be told. Sometimes they belong to other people. Stories waiting to be retold.

The bus stop across from the gallery would like permission to transform into flash fiction./The memory of a creepy photograph, seen briefly weeks ago, wants to be reborn as a horror story.

Chilly October evenings evoke the landscape of Hardy, so I’ve been reading The Return of the Native after the sun sets./ The Roebling Bridge, which connects Ohio to Kentucky, brings to mind Hart Crane./Then there’s my Sylvia Plath mug.

The trees of the mind are black.*

*From The Moon and the Yew Tree by Sylvia Plath.