The details get me started.

At a community garden I see a variety of baptisia, or wild indigo, and have to get one and find a patch for it. In the tub, after a child has sat on the edge and washed her feet, I notice a dirty bar of Dove soap; the words “dirty bar of soap” seem to leap into consciousness and clamor. They seed a poem, currently in progress.

I like compact words and their solid sounds. “Leaf,” “stitch,” and “word” are multi-purpose, with many meanings and applications each, and, because I’m practical, I like that. All function as nouns and verbs, too. These words are enough to capture something about me and launch this project.

Because I spend more time writing, professionally and personally, than I do gardening or sewing, this blog will be more about the composition of words than it will be about gardens and garments. Do you see how all three — leaf, stitch, and word — are components of books? Still, doing one kind of physical and creative labor links to doing another kind. My consternation with the spring garden, for example, reminds me of my uneasiness with a shapeless, thin draft. I’m sure I’ll write in a way that unveils these intersections.

The challenge of what to do with my materials keeps me going. So a blog begins, with the merest of pieces: title, thumbnail, statement, and a first post. Already, the question “what to do next with three five-cent words?” provokes me.