Dreams, You Know, Are What

Anyone Can Express Himself Or Herself, But What Writers And Poets Want To Do In Their Work, More Than Simply Express Themselves, Is Communicate.

It's Akin To Style, What I'm Talking About, But It Isn't Style Alone. It Is The Writer's Particular And Unmistakable Signature On Everything He Writes. It Is His World And No Other. This Is One Of The Things That Distinguishes One Writer From Another. Not Talent. There's Plenty Of That Around. But A Writer Who Has Some Special Way Of Looking At Things And Who Gives Artistic Expression To That Way Of Looking: That Writer May Be Around For A Time.

She Serves Me A Piece Of It A Few Minutes Out Of The Oven. A Little Steam Rises From The Slits On Top. Sugar And Spice - Cinnamon - Burned Into The Crust. But She's Wearing These Dark Glasses In The Kitchen At Ten O'clock In The Morning - Everything Nice - As She Watches Me Break Off A Piece, Bring It To My Mouth, And Blow On It. My Daughter's Kitchen, In Winter. I Fork The Pie In And Tell Myself To Stay Out Of It. She Says She Loves Him. No Way Could It Be Worse.

If We're Lucky, Writer And Reader Alike, We'll Finish The Last Line Or Two Of A Short Story And Then Just Sit For A Minute, Quietly. Ideally, We'll Ponder What We've Just Written Or Read; Maybe Our Hearts Or Intellects Will Have Been Moved Off The Peg Just A Little From Where They Were Before. Our Body Temperature Will Have Gone Up, Or Down, By A Degree. Then, Breathing Evenly And Steadily Once More, We'll Collect Ourselves, Writers And Readers Alike, Get Up, "created Of Warm Blood And Nerves" As A Chekhov Character Puts It, And Go On To The Next Thing: Life. Always Life.

But I Can Hardly Sit Still. I Keep Fidgeting, Crossing One Leg And Then The Other. I Feel Like I Could Throw Off Sparks, Or Break A Window--maybe Rearrange All The Furniture.