We arrived
sweaty and ready to spew verbiage
prepared to show
not tell.
Pockets filled with dollars for coffee, tea
platters brimming with assorted fruits, bagels
confections and pastry bites
home-baked and purchased.
We promoted
staged and distributed
previously read magazines,
classics, novels, and poetry.
We carried
beautiful eco-friendly book bags
bulging with
loose-leaf, marble composition
and steno pads
procured favorite pens, mugs,
laptops. To hone the craft
call on muses
spirits
feral cats and roosters.
We were inspired, by various objets d’art,
to recall memories
good, bad, indifferent.
She then set us adrift.
Some anchored.
Others sailed into halls
adjoining rooms and
the great outdoors
to bask in their creative juices
produce stories, poems, plays.
A set time allotted
before returning to our retreat
later share our writing in small groups of three or four.
Mining the ocean
fostering submissions to the annual college journal
contests and a particular project
dedicated to Lillian
our teacher
facilitator
mentor.
Our campus
nestled beneath the Ko’olau mountains
in beautiful Kaneohe
on the island of Oahu
where scribes gather
nine months out of the year
on a Saturday
to trawl as one tribe
troll the language sea.
Corney Press 