“After the final no there comes a yes”

After the final no there comes a yes; And on that yes the future world depends.

— Wallace Stevens, Well-Dressed Man With a Beard

I am writing on the winter solstice, the darkest night. I have just awoke to the first snow and below freezing temperatures here in Kentucky. The bird feeder has been blown down with gusts of wind. The whole country is in this storm. It is time to plant seeds inside, to plant prayers for the coming light, for the new year.

It is time to do the thing you are afraid to do. It is time to do the thing I am afraid to do: send my book out to publishers. I am imagining that saying this aloud to you will give me courage.

Writing peels away layers, forms questions, what do I want for my readers? I see what is probably obvious, that all my writing turns toward what Robert Johnson called the numinous “slender threads” — fate, destiny, synchronicity, faith in what cannot be told, faith in the transforming ability to make a bridge between the visible and invisible world with your hands. Give your hands something to devote themselves to. Dream while you are awake. With this devotion and attention, work naturally becomes prayer. Every kind of mending is made possible.