My Open Letter of Prayer to the Country of Russia

The typical experience for me is to get lost in the excitement of writing something, see only its magic and surprises, and come to believe I’ve written something really good. I think, “This is amazing! The people who read this are going to love it!”

Then, when I re-read it later, sobriety sets in. Its flaws are there in sharp relief, as if a new light is shining on them. Then I usually think, “What makes me think I can write anything?”

But on rare occasions I have the opposite experience. The other day I re-read this poem for the first time since I sent it out, and it was actually better than I remembered.

An Open Letter of Prayer to the Country of Russia