I have been struggling with writer's block a lot over the past couple of years. I have all sorts of excuses - work, loss of work, financial worries, health problems, issues in our politics and society, family issues - but in the end, they are all excuses. 
I've written hundreds of letters to the editor, then tossed them into the trash and deleted the trash. A couple have made it to the local newspaper. And then there's the nonsense of Facebook. OMG have I LOL'd far too much! Pissing matches with trolls, long diatribes on the state of affairs in this country and the world, and fervent appeals for people to pay attention to the climate crisis, replete with source citations and substantiating science.
Unfortunately, the creative side has been absent. So yesterday I turned to an old friend to see if I could kick-start my muse. I call it the jigsaw poem. I ask folks to give me 10 random words and I look for an inspiration in them to write a poem using those words within the poem.
So, yesterday my niece, Veronica, gave me these 10 words: preserve, condensation, lichen, anime, coffee, bufflehead, lighting, multiplication, fluffy, towered. 

Here is the poem I cobbled together using them. Please tell me what you think!

Deciding Factor

Somehow life had become too complex,

The simplicity of morning coffee and watching anime

Had slowly evolved into a multiplication of problems

Of bills, relationships and responsibilities,

Towering higher and higher, frightening, threatening.

So she ran, seeking the solace of ocean waves,

lichen covered rocks and the refreshing condensation

of morning mists floating down from the skies.

It is here she finds solace.

The dim lighting of dawn is healing to her,

A therapy of light and the unspoken promise

Of a new day.

The smells of brine and the rippling beauty

Of the receding tide preserves her inner calm.

The strength within that city living abhors

Gradually returns.

A bufflehead and its fluffy chick wander the mud flats

Diligently searching for the tiny shrimp, worms and larvae

Exposed by the receding waters.

“I belong here, with you,” she says to the small ducks.

“Not in steel, concrete and glass canyons.

Here where the water is a mirror, where chaos has order,

Where life is in the present moment,

Worrying neither about the past or the future.”

The ducks pay her no heed and continue their foraging.

Simplicity, she thinks, knowing this calming scene

Is a complex tableau of life and death beyond imagination,

Yet, calm. And in that healing calm

She makes her decision.

3/31/20