It's funny; I manage the development of complicated web applications all day, every day, but it was a struggle -- I mean it took hours -- to settle on new font colors, faces, etc. I'm sure all that effort shows in the (ahem) beauty and elegance of the finished product.

Then I see what these crazy kids are doing today and want to start all over again.

When I'm not comparing hex colors or debating between Trebuchet and Verdana, my creative energy is expressing itself in a long-dormant urge: to read (& write?) poetry. I keep picking up A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz. And I just remembered a poem I wrote 10 years ago (for Dr. Harry Thomas' Modern American Poetry class) that I'm not too shy to share with the world:

from Tu Fu's On Yo-Yang Tower

"Tung t'ing's waters," they told me,
"divide this land, east from west."
Today it seems to me that the land
divides the water.
My boat is all I have, unsteady ground.

Yo-yang tower stands solid on the dirt.
From the top, I can see
in all directions. I can see
no friends or family.

It was a long climb up here.
I realize that the murmur
I thought was the earth singing to herself
is horses, the hooves of war,
and what I thought
was sweat, tears.