I have a friend who maintains a blog dedicated to giving artists and closet creatives a forum for getting their work seen.  No Apology Arts.

In a recent phone conversation, he asked me if I had been to the site recently. He invited me to look at its current gallery of photographs and see if any called to me.  Maybe, he posed, one of the images could inspire a poem.

Oh gosh, I haven’t written a poem in a long while.  I’ve been pretty faithful about posting regular blogs, and occasionally, I will make a date to spend some time with a journal, a good companion, as I excavate my psyche, but I haven’t written a poem in years.

What is a poem anyway?

It’s a story in a postcard; words and images wrapped around irony.

Sunsets, foot bridges, flowers – I took my time going through the online scrapbook.  I was curious about how the photographers approached some shots.  I could tell that the shots were deliberate, composed, not digitally captured after an inadvertent swipe on a smart phone.

I lingered on a couple shots of tomatoes contributed by J. Gall.  The photos reminded me of trips I’ve made to The Green City Market, where over 70 stalls convene every Saturday near the Lincoln Park Zoo, and the smaller market I can walk to in Horner Park.

Farmers from Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and downstate Illinois will bring their fresh pickings to different neighborhoods in the city according to a regular weekly schedule.  There are plenty of young professionals and health conscious families, wanting to stay clear of GMO edibles, that are willing to pay top dollar.

I smile at my own new found snobbery about which farms offer the best produce and laugh at the farmers’ sons, often given the job of selling and bagging different colors of peppers, potatoes and asparagus (during its short season).  They seem to talk about their crops like they were doted on children, beaming with pride as they would drop information about their special qualities as if they were relating their SAT scores.

I wrote The Currency of Summer based on the photograph I saw on the No Apology Arts site.

I found delight and bemusement in my own relationship with boutique produce, their captivating colors and sobering prices.

I looked up a few things, like names of different varieties, to achieve authenticity, and I ruminated over a few words and phrases.  I didn’t just want to tell a story.  I wanted to find fresh ways to describe things.

Yes, I responded to an assignment, of sorts. I found inspiration in an image, but –

At a time when I easily forget where I put my car keys, can’t see the game score on my TV screen without glasses, and can’t seem to lose weight, like I used to, by cutting out alcohol and sweets, it was very satisfying to see that I could still choose words that tell an engaging story and provoke thought.

Girl, I thought to myself,  You still have it.

I riffed off the poem in good time and liked what I came up with.

More importantly, I enjoyed the process.

In The Currency of Summer, I tried to write lines that were authentic, funny, and thought-provoking.  I wanted it to affect readers, but —

I never forgot to have fun with THE WORDS.

Allowing myself to try something I haven’t done in a long time, remembering to take pleasure in the process, is no small thing.