bottling day 2010

 The talk was of summer evenings when the sun's heat has diminished and a cool shade creeps across the garden, plants shifting their greens in the growing shadows. One of these bottles will be chilling, something delicious grilling, and nothing else will matter but enjoying the moment with friends.

Epicurus was right.

It was bottling day at Lone Fool Brewery. We came away with 55 bottles of a house white (Pinot Grigio) and a house red (Shiraz)

Winemaking, like other hand crafts, teaches patience by rewarding it. I've written about that here before, referencing gardening and brewing and the making of books. It requires a confidence in the process. When we started these wines we had our eyes on summer and when the time comes to pour, we'll be glad for it.

I'm about to begin a poetry master class at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. A half dozen poets have been brewing up a manuscript for years; one person told me she'd worked on the poems, off and on, for 20 years. Now it's time to bottle them—to seal them off from further tinkering, to let them fall dormant. Only then can they be poured for an invited guest in the form of the book.

We'll work on these manuscripts all through spring and summer, finishing just as fall equinox arrives. There will be deep conversation in the group about what makes a sequence of individual poems cohere into a group, and how best to present it all to readers. 

There will also be wine and good food, and a shared sense of artists together who care about the art form and about helping one another.

I look forward to it, and I know I'll bring a bottle of my own to the table each time.