A lesson I am always learning, and hating, is that things take the time they take. I am watching the slow drip of a pour-over while I work from the coffee shop and thinking about all the things I want to move more quickly. The clarity I want to materialize before it has fully developed; the projects I want to move forward before the next step is ready; the things I want to be getting done even though the will for them hasn’t arrived yet. I say I want the flavor of a slow brew, but I expect it to come quickly— every time.

One of the poems in my manuscript ends with this stanza:

I wonder what crops can’t bloom 

because I have already filled the field

with what my eyes can see

The empty field is excruciating.