Deer mouse on our bird feeder yesterday, and sketched in my journal.

The mouse-sketch came after writing about two books I’ve read this past week, Nicholas Triolo’s The Way Around, and Gary Snyder’s Mountains and Rivers Without End.

Triolo mentions Snyder, in particular his poem about “The Circumambulation of Mt Tamalpais,” in his book—which is also about circumambulation and which makes explicit reference to Snyder’s poem.

After reading these two books I started writing some stream-of-consciousness poetry about where our clean water comes from and where it goes. These are things I think we don’t pay enough attention to.

After writing that poem as a draft I returned to it to see if there was anything good in it. (Sometimes there is! But not always.)

I found in it the inkling of a haiku, so I wrote the draft of the haiku several times.

Each draft was poor, awkward, clumsy.

Which is fine.

You don’t suddenly become a master of haiku.

You get better by trying, failing, observing, reading, watching others at work, getting criticism, trying again.

Ora et labora. Repeat.

Try. Err. Stumble. Pray. Try again. Pray again.

Pray without ceasing.

Try with rigor and with periods of rest.

Contemplation, conversation, commentary.

I am not a master of haiku. I have written and published a little poetry but not much.

Lately I have been focusing more on sketching and painting. Observing small lives, small details.

So after the poem I returned to the mouse.

Normally I begin my sketches with pencil. Maybe non-photo blue, or light graphite. Then I can erase the sketch once I have gone over the best parts with ink.

But I have been practicing a lot, and this week I have often begun my sketches with ink.

I am not a master, but after lots of practice I worry less that this sketch will fail. As Henry Bugbee says, “get it down.”

So I am getting it down. If I mess up (I will!) I will repeat. Or try another.

And I will keep learning.

The road to mastery is not a day trip.

It is “a long obedience in the same direction.”

But I am learning that the road itself, even if I never complete the walk, is beautiful every step of its circumambulatory and peripatetic way.

A hand-drawn illustration of a brown rodent, possibly a mouse, with large ears and a textured fur pattern.&10;&10;The above was written by AI, and I take it as an affirmation. If I can do this quick sketch in ink (with some colored pencil overtop) in just a few minutes and a machine can see that it’s a mouse then I am content. For now.