Baby Rats

Why is it that phrases and sentences sound so much better in your head than they do on the page? I walk around the block with my dog, and the perfect phrase, the poetic thought creeps into my consciousness. I return home and write, and then there lie the words on a sprawling white tundra of a page. Naked and hairless as baby rats, capable of only a mother’s love. And quite often this mother rat ain’t so loving of her mewling offspring.

Boy oh boy, there they go again, metaphor tumbling over metaphor. In a hurry scurry to pour out of this wordsmith’s fingertips onto the bald steppes. To be swallowed up in the unforgiving desert. Or picked off by that hovering bird of prey, my editing eye.

I thought of a lovely phrase as I walked round the block just now, chilled by the cold, pulled hither and thither by the inquisitive dog. But I shan’t share it just yet. I need to clothe it to keep it warm and safe. I am hugging it to my breast until tomorrow. Who knows, it may have grown wings by then, and be able to fly solo.