Dear friends, Every year I take two weeks off from sharing poems to focus on my family. I will still be writing daily poems, just not posting them. Then, around April 20, I will send you a big bouquet of poems from the past two weeks and the poems will resume their daily arrival in your […]
After the political rally, standing on the cornerwas the man in the pink flamingo onesieand the handlebar mustache playing ukelele,singing “This Land Was Made for You And Me,”surrounded by folks still carrying their signsfor Peace, Diversity and Equality, and thoughno one was listening, though there were no news trucks,no microphones, no megaphones, and no wayany […]
Pure Imagination: A Poetry Thoughtshop Drawing on One of Our Greatest GiftsApril 24, 6-7 MT,Zoom, recording availablesliding scale The effort of the imagination is to turn the boundary into a horizon because there is no end point for you. The boundary says, Here and no further. The horizon says, Welcome.—Barry Lopez, Horizons (short film by […]
And if god is in everything—in the bend of the riverand the apricot tree, the song of the blackbirdand the awkward smile of the little ballerinain purple who wandered out tonight onto the stageto join a dance recital already in progress—a dance class that wasn’t even hers— yes, if godis in everything, and I believe […]
And if you can’t find a candle,then light the wick of your wonder.And if you can’t find your wonder,then now might be a good timeto pray. And if you don’tknow how to pray,then perhaps you are doing it right.What do I know of prayer?Only that every prayer that has saved meis a prayer that has […]
Dear Charles Bukowski,This morning when my student wanted to share a poem,I was disappointed when she said the poem was yours.I didn’t want to hear about whiskey and whores.And there they were in stanza two,but also, singing its way through the whole poemwas the bluebird that lives in your heart,and Charles, I wish you could […]
We show up, burn brightly, live passionately and hold nothing back and when the moment is over, when our work is done, we step back and let go.—Rolf Gates This moment, too, is surrender, this blazing,this bliss-ache, this bright-chime of being,this showing up heartbare with no shred held back,this feral unselving, this radiant lossof all […]
Imagine the self as a canyon in the making, once solid, and then, ongoingly, made more spacious, shaped by water, by wind, by forces beyond its control. Whatever is sacred, I feel it in canyons, these earthen temples to surrender— such holy architecture with their deep and ancient silence, with their steep and crumbling walls. How sacred the […]
I wanted that plastic recorder.Wanted it so much that when momsuggested I could earn that two dollarsby defrosting the freezer, I saton the black-and-white tiled kitchen floorwith a blow drier on high. For hours.Sat there watching each drip.Sat there longer, perhaps,than the cumulative time I playedmy recorder, but I tell you,I cherished that brown plastic […]