instructions for writing, or, my self-talk for when i feel there are no more words:
go outside. if it is warm enough take the okra seeds from the water—their husks just softened—and put them in the soil. lay down and look up with your daughter, naming the shapes of every cloud you see. attempt to draw what you cannot see in the photograph of your great grandmother, what is just outside of its frame. touch the branches of a tree ahead of you as you swing. fail at things, which is to say try, which is to say play. drive upstate and find the places where you cannot tell the difference between Lake Superior and sky. listen to Moses Sumney, what is vibrating beneath the lyric. gossip with your neighbor. read Beloved, again. hold your beloved close, grow upwards and downwards at the same time—root system ready—until something emerges, climbing from the soil.
—chaun webster, author of Without Terminus: untraining an archive
(Graywolf Press, 2026)
Photo credit: Raymond Wong