The Season of Poetry

Lately I've been wanting more of everything and that troubles me.  I want my plate to be more full at mealtime.  I want the food to be more flavorful.  I want to be intrigued by something, stirred by something, moved to act.  To see something pretty and rare, hear something I've never heard before, savor a rich, complex flavor.  But that wouldn't be enough.  I want to gorge myself on life.  Yet, I'm barely sampling it.  Why is that?

In this season, this early spring, the signs are all around.  Transformation.  Newness.  Life.  But, my mind still wears its thick winter fleece and my senses are dulled by lack of input.  Too many contented nights by the fire.  Too many pleasant little reads.  Too much of the comfortable.

I hate to invite trouble, but sometimes I wonder if I confuse complacency with contentment.  And, if I do, I want to know it right now; because the last thing I want to be is complacent.  I want to be alive, in the moment, alert.  The imagination must be fed.

I need to shake off winter's hibernation and get out of the cave that is my brain.  Listen again to Leaves of Grass with its jazzy accompaniment; read it.  I think I understand more of Whitman now than I ever did before.  Let it be the season of poetry!