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At the Writers' Retreat in Scotland 
I want to believe 
nothing happens by accident 
and thus- 
if the step-down transformer 
I used to convert the current 
has somehow fried 
my laptop's power source 
it must be I am intended 
to live like the poets of yore, 
work with pen & ink, my hand 
an instrument that channels 
the brooding romance of Hawthornden- 
medieval turret, Lover's Loup, 
ghosts of Ben Jonson and Drummond, 
the River Esk in its leafy glen- 
into marks mysterious and true 
as Pictish glyphs 
scratched in a cliff's sandstone. 
I might have discussed 
these ideas-predestination, 
reincarnation, how to live 
a poetic life-with the Hindu astrologer 
at my Edinburgh B&B 
but he was rushing out the door 
disk in hand, to find an Internet cafe 
where he could print out the ad 
for his evening lecture: 
Applying ancient science 
to the 21st century. 
Judith Strasser 
[previously published in Chapman (2004); and The Reason/Unreason Project
(Lewis-Clark Press, 2006)] 
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