Well, I'm back from VCCA. After a couple of days in the hubbub of the real world, my time there already feels like a dream. It was such a fruitful time--what a pleasure to wallow in words for over a week, to have nothing to do but write and eat and sleep and commune with nature and creative people. I hope I'll find a way to maintain the momentum I developed there--I really reconnected with my novel, which I'm very grateful for (I think part of the trick will be to continue to limit my internet access--it's amazing how much time I fritter away online). I will try to share more details soon, but for now here's a poem I wrote my last full day there:

Geodes
-or-
An ode to VCCA

On the cow-flanked road
between bed and desk, a patch
of asphalt has fallen away,
exposing large chunks of quartz
beneath, as if the road itself
is a geode, broken open
into radiance. We all break open
here—"I had a break through today,"
I hear again and again, from writer,
from artist, from composer, each of us
cracking through the stone skin
of our lives to find hidden minerals
that startle us with their color, their ability
to catch the light. One day, I opened
my studio door to find the room full
of ladybugs, walls seething with them,
air alive with specks of red, and I knew
my own heart had burst open there,
coating every surface with its jagged,
winged, hum.