December 2010.

Or how I learned to stop worrying and just write.

I went through a period of about ten years where I wrote almost nothing. My internal critic kept telling me everything I wrote was worthless and inept and I never managed to get anything out. The gulls somehow managed to set me free. This has been the first of many poems I've written over the last couple of years and hopefully I'll keep on writing and make up for lost time.

It's quite different in style than most of my work, but I think I might like to get back into this sort of word painting. Not entirely satisfied with my imagery in this poem, however - I think I can do better.

And a little tidbit: the meter of this poem was as important to me as the actual words. It's no accident that I used a flurry of trochees to describe the struggle of ascending that is finally resolved into a triumphant iamb. Meter is very important to me, even in free verse.