I suppose it's finally time to admit that summer is over. After all, I've been back in the trenches of work for a week now. Late leisurely mornings, fridge raiding, and untimed bathroom breaks are well behind me. Before me are lesson plans, essay scoring, and more than a few "This is boring!"s. Madre de Dios, the dawn of a new school year is fabulous! Hence, the prose. I'm feeling a bit guilty, though, that I didn't exactly keep my promise to chronicle my summer through poetry. Oh, if I could show you the pages of my traveling writer's journal, you could see that I did write a lot. Yes, I wrote. A lot. I think this could be called the "Summer of Writing." It's like I finally found my voice again, and along the way I've discovered some very important truths about my craft. True writing is fluid and never ending, and much of what has made it from my head to paper is still in fragment form, like a soul waiting to for a body. You might be sur...

Prepared we were not to cross Captain Jack's path late in the summer of ten, with the sun bearing down as we wandered the town where the Koreshans once lived. But he nodded. We smiled and went on our way, rolling it all in our heads. We giggled and talked and suddenly stopped to turn back and run after him. You see love for a pirate and sailing the seas rest deep in a gypsy girl's soul, where she dreams of the day he will take her away to find a new place in the world. So we followed his swagger as he wound through the woods and stopped to take in the sights. You know when chance comes to call you must answer with all because sometimes she doesn't seek twice. There we tracked Captain Jack on the seashell lined path and dreamed of the life that he lived With his swashbuckling ways that man made our day late in the summer of ten. You know love for a pirate and an adventurer's life lie deep in a gypsy girl's soul, where she dreams of the world she has yet to explore an...