December 29, 2018 It rains here a lot.

It rains in western Oregon, and it rains a lot. Our efforts to work the land have been rained out for two weeks. And even though there are interior spaces to consider and build, these are not sufficient to take up the time available in our lives. So we hobby around a bit.

Ann's hobby is cooking and baking. So she has been busy learning to make breads while testing recipes she searches for in books, magazines, and on the Internet. We eat well at Creekside Farm. The chickens and dogs eat everything we don't.

My hobby is writing long fiction. I write all of the time, but put things on pages only occasionally. This hobby began when I had more time on my hands than things to employ them. The stories simply appear out of nowhere in my visual mind, but then it takes months and years to appear on the page. None of this is easily explained, which is good because it makes the inside of my brain fun even though it complicates things. I have been working to squeeze a new book into paper for the past few weeks and things are going surprisingly well. This may be the one book that actually works out as intended, only time will tell.

This morning I woke up to find the resolution to a few problems I created for myself in the book, one was a reason for the suicidal death of one of the main characters. For some reason the death had to be a beautiful death, so I spent five minutes looking around the Internet for inspiration and found a piece of Ballet which led into finding a poem, which led to another poem and some analytics. I don't do poetry, but a few have happened to me in the past and I appreciate the stuff.  I opened a blank page in my word processor to start taking notes and a poem fell onto the page unexpectedly. I sent it out to a poetry web site, but had to publish it here for copyrighting purposes.

The Dying Swan – © 2018 David Paul Drake

We all fight death,

its relentless behavior.

But witness change,

to all, in nature.

Dying swans catch, without assent.

To rail, to rant, warble, lament.

To no avail. Death won't repent.

All lives end, despite intent.

We say “Cry out!”

And “Fight!” with zeal.

Yet all still fail in their appeal.

None escape that which is real.

Strive and strafe, care, and carry.

Waste the time, or never tarry.

Marry and parent, extend your lives.

Pointless or fruitful, death still arrives.