Back again—homing pigeon style—at Peddler’s Fork, I ordered a cup of the restaurant’s Kickstand Blend and a macadamia nut infused scone that tastes more like somebody’s gourmet birthday cake than scone, which is why I ordered it, and carted my spoils outside to the restaurant’s deck, even though it’s Arctic-California in Old Calabasas these days. I can’t resist the view of the vaguely gurgling creek several feet below the deck, and the 2 mallards residing there, birds you know are aware of each other even when she’s paddling for worms and he’s off playing tug-of-war with a morning glory vine. If she paddles too far South, he quacks, sternly, vine in beak, facing not her, but tree. I find this sort of voyeurism priceless, possibly essential, hunched in my little magical pocket of Los Angeles that is Peddler’s Fork at 8:23 in the morning on any Wednesday, sipping Kickstand Blend (better, even, than Starbucks Holiday Blend’s soft and layered, and served year round) with a smile that means I might actually write something new, rather than revise, revise, revise.

I hate it when poets impart bits like: The poem overtook me, or, I knew not myself I knew only the poem, or, I was a conduit for Life, or, Aliens invaded my psyche and messed with things, etc. And yet…

Pure synchronicity.

I’m thinking the dreams I had somewhere between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning lingered in my psyche, producing a poem that surprised me because a) I was actually composing a poem and not revising, yah, yah), and b) the poem is so different than anything I’ve been writing lately. Product of incubation? Is nothing for certain except the Muse, or are her paths (if they do appear) elementary—i.e., far from beyond me and my little muddled maps?

Why ask why? Something came knocking at my icy table on the deck at Peddler’s Fork and I let it in. I might even have offered it a sip of my coffee.

Quack, she said.

Right on.