I usually work alone,  the pottery wheel humming and turning, - with my husband sculpting in the next room.  Except for the dogs, and the  occasional sound of a cumbia or a guajira gliding under the door between our separate studios, it's  usually quiet here and I  do love it. But after three days at the Writers Conference,(writing is my second love), my brain's been prodded and re-activated. So much creativity!  On the last day there were readings by visiting writers. Poet, Bob Stanley, read from his book, "Walt Whitman Orders a Cheeseburger", reading with a touch of sly humor and accompanied by a bass-playing friend. It worked.  Then I had to buy Alison Luterman's  "See How We Almost Fly" when I heard her read her poems. This morning, with my coffee, I enjoyed her  "A woman carries the world on her head." and copied it here for  friends to read.

   A woman carries the world on her head

                                                

in the form of a bag of rice,

a bucket of water,

a great load of thatch to roof a house,

Her spine is a sturdy deliverance

from evil, her arms are loose and purposeful,

her baby wrapped in bright cloth on her back,  
She can stop by the side of the road and talk                                        

for as long as it takes you to take her picture,

to fold a two hundred-kwatcha note

into her rough palms

which have never gripped a steering wheel

or a credit card, which have never held a latte in a paper cup

or maneuvered a dirt-sucking vacuum through all the rooms

of a carpeted house. You know her and you do not

know. You see her

walking, with a log the size of a man

laid lengthwise on top of her head,

a log which would crush

the small bones of your neck

to powder, and though it is not

in your power to change much 

if anything, here, you long to know more

watching her walk, without fanfare,

into the world,

goats, chickens, trees, sky -

her burden perfectly balanced,

the world on top of her head,

the world inside.

                                      Alison Luterman

I loved the novelist, Malin Alegria's, workshop.

Jan