I respond to a written recommendation from someone referring to poetry to “write something every day” no matter what or how much…so here we go. The western afternoon sun is shining hot on the roses, but they are sturdy and more than able to take it and I imagine them smiling and dancing in the light breeze.  I admire my flower bed with satisfaction when both coming and going.  I just went out to run errands and realize how even doing that there is poetry in it, there is art…always striving to see words rearranged in some unique way to describe whatever I’m seeing or hearing or doing.  I try to get that down, dictating thoughts into my cell phone.  A contrast between the old days of scrawling on a napkin or in a notebook and this century’s carrying the same bursts of inspiration, drafts, first lines, deep or shallow thoughts, and so on my smartphone.  Trying to move, to be flexible, take steps, breathe, stretch, lean this way and that to feel a good burn, not wanting to turn so stiff that I can only remember or dream about moving.  Listening to news from the other room as I hammer this out…the brain doing its amazing duty of keeping it separate, each thing in its place. Our dog is no more among us…and after 17 years of his being everywhere we were and went, his absence has hit us hard.  We see him often in the photos that are streaming in a constant slide show on a device screen in our kitchen and each time his image comes up it calls for a sigh and a little prayer to him to rest in peace.