like babies. Breathe them in, bounce them, burp them from time to time. May you offer spoonfuls of nourishment and meet the inevitable mess with a soft bib and a warm smile. May you forsake walls together. May you curl like spoons in the lap of the earth and air yourselves to the sky. When your babies see the stars, may they wonder what they might still become.
Your 3-year-old muse inspired some gorgeous lines, here Lisa. So lovely: "May you curl like spoons/in the lap of the earth and air yourselves to the sky." I love the idea of babies drawing inspiration from the stars, and I also thought, "when any of us see the stars, may be wonder what we might still become" (inhale...exhale...yes, please).
I love this so much! I read the line "may it snug with certainty" so many times . . . the combination of sounds and the use of snug as a verb is just so delicious. And ah, the ending! "its pockets / deep enough / to carry all your dreams." Beautiful.
Thank you, friend! Yes - I love snug as a verb...and I love even more how poetry is such a great vehicle for flouting the stuffy rules of grammar and hybridizing parts of speech. Poetry is radical like that <fist pumps for poetry!!!>
What beautiful wishes,Keith. I love the pairing of "Bespoke and Buttoned" connected to "belonging." Your gift for enhancing any idea, concept, creative thought with such luminous and lyrical words is remarkable.
This is such a beautiful wish, Keith. I love every line, but especially "bespoke and buttoned securely with belonging," "snug with certainty," and all of the last four lines - which, I guess is still almost everything😅
Haha, thank you, A. - it's okay with me if you like every line ; ) And, I know that's often how I feel about your poems (hard to isolate one or two lines, because so many of them grab me).
Love this Keith, feeling comfortable in one's own skin is, is there anything more important? It really all starts from there. Yes it must fit "securely with belonging" and have "pockets deep enough to carry all your dreams."
I loved this blessing for your inner child, Lisa. I found this to be a comforting prompt as well. I wrote mine for everyone who has ever been threatened with a "just you wait..." as if they only had the bad to look forward to, or an "it goes so fast, enjoy it!" when everything felt too hard.
I think that might depend on the reader! I spun my poem off the saying, "the days are long, but the years are short" because, especially now that I'm a parent, it feels truer than I'd like it to - the days often drag on, but the years are passing so quickly - so I framed my blessing as a sort of reversal of that phenomenon, but I can see how some might see a wish for shorter days as the opposite of a blessing!
I understood short days to mean days when you're so present and in the flow of your life that you lose track of time. I think for me, "longer days" would have the association of sick or bickering children or maybe long hours stuck in airports due to unexpected flight delays. 😂
Working on some other things today, and freshly home from step one of a new crown, I felt such gratitude for so many things. Among those are this beauitful colectiuon of Poet prophets that so lovingly share your heart, spirit, soul, minds, brilliance and beauty in every word.
Blessing for the Poets/Prophets
May peace be in your every step,
across the varied terrain you travel
in your unique, deeply personal life journey.
May Peace be in your every moment,
sheltering you from the storms and
holding you when the shelters are all taken.
May grace be with you in every single motion,
your movement towards or away from wholeness,
forgiveness freely flowing inward and outward.
May grace be a healing balm for a battered spirit,
soothing salve to dissolve shame and guilt,
sacred necessity for a world desperate for balance.
May Hope be in your heart,
filling up with joy as life unfolds,
and healing your precious spirit at the broken places.
May hope birth a new song for your morning,
sweet lullabies to calm your night,
and the map to guide you for all the in between.
May Love be your faithful and fruitful center,
your first response when the legions of hate and disharmony
find their way to your door.
May loving kindness be your every breath,
Inviting you in through an open door,
sharing it with the world even when your breathing is done.
What a gorgeous blessing to wish on absolutely everyone. These lines will stay with me - "May grace be with you in every single motion, / your movement towards or away from wholeness, / forgiveness freely flowing inward and outward." Thank you for your huge heart, Larry!
This blessing/poem feels familiar to me, and I'm realizing that's because you've shared sentiments like these in so many comments to each of us over these months. Everything you say is a blessing.
This is a beautifully kind comment, A. Encountering you in these poetry spaces since last May has been a true blessing and a gift for me. Thank you for being here and so present no matter what may be happening around you.
I want to echo A's feeling that you have blessed us all so consistently with your generous, heartful comments, Larry. This blessing is beautiful, gracious and loving. My nervous system feels cradled by your words <3
Thank you Keith. This is very humbling and heartwarming, coming from your kind, gracious and gentle heart and spirit. I am so grateful to be in this space with you.
Very powerful Larry! I specifically loved this: "May grace be a healing balm for a battered spirit, soothing salve to dissolve shame and guilt, sacred necessity for a world desperate for balance." A beautiful prayer. Amen, and So It Is, and Ashe, and Blessed Be!
This blessing/poem feels familiar to me, and I'm realizing that's because you've shared sentiments like these in so many comments to each of us over these months. Everything you say is a blessing.
It's soothing and comforting to read, too, Karri -- thank you for this. Some things that stood out for me are the idea of no purpose being too small, needing to be able to accept as well as give encouragement, and allowing ourselves to simply be, "whatever that looks like for you today."
Beautiful poem Lisa! How innocent and sweet to hold our burdens like babies. Taking care of them, and ourselves in the process. Yes "may they wonder what they might still become."
I love poems based in blessing, prayer, wishes and wonders. John O'Donohue was a master at that. Today, here is my humble poem, from a heart that longs for the poetry of life.
This is so sweet and fragrant, Julie, like the emerging spring waking us from the depths of winter. Your combination and use of words are so beauitful, and I loved this stanza in particular:
"Never a straight line,
as it curves and twists,
goes up and down,
in and out, all around.
Beautifully ephemeral.
Imperfectly majestic."
Your poem and blessing are so renewing and refreshing. Thank you.
Love your invitation to look at adversity as "medicinal alchemy," and the twist on heartbreak -- "breaking your heart open / into simple kindness and love." Beautiful blessing, Julie!
Love the idea of savoring. Everything. Sometimes we rush through whatever it may be, eating, taking a walk, even sleeping to get to the next thing that seems more important but you captured here that just being alive in and of itself is delightful and we have so many opportunities to savor!
SO AGREE! Savoring for me is really being present, taking in and truly tasting, sensing, feeling, what is transpiring. Not rushing into the next this or that, or racing forward into the next taste or sensation.
I read LIsa's post at about the same time as I read this NYT op-ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/columbia-protests-israel.html. I didn't care for the op-ed author's message or tone and decided to write a snarky blessing-poem for him. But then while crafting said blessing it became not so snarky anymore -- go figure!
Formatting won't work quite right here, but as a heads-up, it begins with an epigraph. And just to reduce some of the enigma, 4'33" is a John Cage composition that the op-ed author references, and that ended being a very interesting rabbit hole to go down in writing my blessing.
.
There's No Such Thing as Silence: A Blessing
.
"They missed the point. There’s no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out." - John Cage, on 4’33”
I am going to have to borrow form both A. and Chuck here - woof! In fact, a whole howling chorus of woofs. This is so powerful, and I felt it so viscerally.
Thank you for the link to McWhorter's op-ed and for this righteous response to his self-righteousness. Thank you for invoking imagery of the one demographic he seems to leave out of his op-ed, the Palestinians who are homeless, starving and breaking. Thank you for giving such beautiful expression to your outrage, which is mine, too. Several of the lines struck me, but something about the image of tents planted like tulips on the hallowed lawn of Columbia really got me.
"May the collective hum of every lung shiver your blood, brim your eyes, unspool your neurons out into the open, where you may finally learn to listen." To borrow a term from Chuck, "Woof." So many feelings here.
Thank you for this powerful witness, Rebekah. I like how you relate that your intention started with a high level of smarminess and evolved into something not quite so. Your wisdom, compassion, passion and empathy turned that shakiness into this very real wish for humanity, for peace, for compassion, for an end to the brutality and perhaps an end to that tired, proven wrong a thousand times concept that violence in response to violence ever brings peace. May the wisdom you demonstrate here be in the hearts and minds of leaders here and there. 🙏🏻
This was not really on prompt but had a long day then saw the great work from everyone including you and that “poem” and story remembrance popped into my head, and just wrote it out and went to bed!
Thank you friend. I know she doesn't really mean it at this age, and just doesn't know how to express her anger/ frustration, but it definitely still hurts to hear.
Yes, of course it does...and a very particular kind of hurt, knowing that she doesn't mean it but that she goes there because that is where we go sometimes when we don't know what to do with the intensity of human emotion. A lot to hold. <3
Wow, Billy - this paints such a visceral portrait of how we all have the seeds of all the things in us when we arrive here...and different seasons and conditions nurture different seeds. But under it all is that peace that goes beyond understanding - it's what we come from and where we return. Hopefully, we return there for moments, however brief, while we are in the thick of the madness here.
The first part of this flashed me back to the good times my son and I had long ago writing letters to ball players asking for their autographs. He still has a signed chipper jones rookie card.
Very powerful, poignant and provocative, Billy. You capture those shifting moments when even our most beloved can turn, and instead of love throw other more vitriolic and toxic things our way. Sometimes they circle back and sometimes not. Your poem evoked a poem by Wendell Berry called “ Setting Our,” which is about circling. As I read this, I am throwing the ball for Callie, our grand dog who does seem to have boundless energy and infinite capacity for joy. But later, she, and I, will rest.
I am reading a weekly piece from the SALT Project, a wonderful community of progressive people of faith andf spirit that I use every week in preparation for Sunday. This week, they offered this wonderful prose/poem from the remarkable Annie Dillard from her book "The Writing Life" and I wanted to share. With gratitude to all of you, to Kaitlin Curtice, Jillian Joy, A. Wilder Westgate, and the brilliant Lisa Jensen, I have been invited, inspired and encouraged to share some of these poems which have flowed since 7th grade in 1968 with more than just me and a few dear family. In the process, I have received so much more in return from your poems and writings and your remarkable hearts and spirits. Thank you.
What follows below is an excerpt from Dillard’s classic, The Writing Life, laid out as a poem for your reading pleasure.
What marvelous and marvelously written instructions for writers! I adore these lines - "These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water." Thank you so much for sharing this, Larry, and I am so glad you're sharing your own poems with us, too.
Larry, I'm so glad you have opened the treasure trove of your poems to share here. That sharing is a wonderful illustration Annie Dillard's wise and exquisite words...your poems "fill from behind, from beneath, like well water." Thank you for sharing your own words and hers.
I was gifted a copy of that book about 10 years after she wrote it, and it was the first time I read any Annie Dillard. She is brilliant. I mentioned her eclipse essay several times to folks before the recent solar eclipse. So powerful.
This is a great persona poem, Chuck (if God can be called a persona, that is). I love the rhyming and the calling out/calling in of a higher power. I think the idea of "purpose" is the cause of much consternation for many. Even if we're living out a damn good purpose, it can seem like it's not enough. Relatable, very.
You're never too old for a purpose, Chuck! (I'm sure, based on your poem, you know that) I love the perspective here, and you almost always manage to make me chuckle (feels like a weird word to use, given its proximity to your name, but the pun works).
I love the rhyming in this, has quite the rhythm. And yes I agree with Lisa, God has quite the sharp tongue here. But hey, at times we just need a solid wake up call.
Your 3-year-old muse inspired some gorgeous lines, here Lisa. So lovely: "May you curl like spoons/in the lap of the earth and air yourselves to the sky." I love the idea of babies drawing inspiration from the stars, and I also thought, "when any of us see the stars, may be wonder what we might still become" (inhale...exhale...yes, please).
The poem that wanted to emerge for me:
May you recognize
your own skin for
the raiment it is,
bespoke and buttoned
securely with belonging.
May it snug with certainty,
neither chafing
nor constraining, containing
enough room to breathe
but not enough to lease.
May it wear well, sturdy
at its seams, its pockets
deep enough
to carry all your dreams.
I love this so much! I read the line "may it snug with certainty" so many times . . . the combination of sounds and the use of snug as a verb is just so delicious. And ah, the ending! "its pockets / deep enough / to carry all your dreams." Beautiful.
Thank you, friend! Yes - I love snug as a verb...and I love even more how poetry is such a great vehicle for flouting the stuffy rules of grammar and hybridizing parts of speech. Poetry is radical like that <fist pumps for poetry!!!>
Beautiful Keith....both in language and meaning.
Thank you, Karri <3
Just enough room.
Yes, just enough. :)
Ooooh, chills for this one Keith. Who couldn't benefit from this blessing? As always, your message and your wordcraft are equally marvelous.
Thanks, Rebekah - indeed, I think most everyone carries the burden of feeling not enough/too much - at least to some extent. <3
What beautiful wishes,Keith. I love the pairing of "Bespoke and Buttoned" connected to "belonging." Your gift for enhancing any idea, concept, creative thought with such luminous and lyrical words is remarkable.
Thank you, Larry - that's a wonderful compliment! I'm grateful for it :))
This is such a beautiful wish, Keith. I love every line, but especially "bespoke and buttoned securely with belonging," "snug with certainty," and all of the last four lines - which, I guess is still almost everything😅
Haha, thank you, A. - it's okay with me if you like every line ; ) And, I know that's often how I feel about your poems (hard to isolate one or two lines, because so many of them grab me).
Love this Keith, feeling comfortable in one's own skin is, is there anything more important? It really all starts from there. Yes it must fit "securely with belonging" and have "pockets deep enough to carry all your dreams."
Thank you, Julie - so glad to know this resonated for you!
Love the word raiment and love that alliteration right after-bespoke and buttoned/deep enough to carry your dreams…wow!
Thanks, Billy - much appreciated :)
I loved this blessing for your inner child, Lisa. I found this to be a comforting prompt as well. I wrote mine for everyone who has ever been threatened with a "just you wait..." as if they only had the bad to look forward to, or an "it goes so fast, enjoy it!" when everything felt too hard.
.
May your years be long;
may they sigh and stretch
and linger deliciously.
May your days be short,
and filled with sweetness.
Oh my goodness, are there any 5 lines on the planet more delicious than these!?
Oh, probably😅 but thank you
I really liked this. Compact but conveyed a lot! How do you think it would read if you substituted “short” for “even longer”?
I think that might depend on the reader! I spun my poem off the saying, "the days are long, but the years are short" because, especially now that I'm a parent, it feels truer than I'd like it to - the days often drag on, but the years are passing so quickly - so I framed my blessing as a sort of reversal of that phenomenon, but I can see how some might see a wish for shorter days as the opposite of a blessing!
I understood short days to mean days when you're so present and in the flow of your life that you lose track of time. I think for me, "longer days" would have the association of sick or bickering children or maybe long hours stuck in airports due to unexpected flight delays. 😂
Yes! I figured so. Good stuff A.
Such a lovely juxtaposition in these lines, A. - and so much conveyed so vividly with few words - truly artfully done!
Short and sweet! And packing a punch!
Thank you for this sweet poem A! As usual, it makes me think of when mine were young!
nuggets of gold.
Thank you so much, Chuck!
This is a beautiful nugget from you, A -- thank you!
I want to call all my short poems nuggets from now on.
Very nice, A. I say Aloha, Amen, Ashe, Shalom, Salaam, Peace, Blessed be and May it ever be so to your sweet blessing poem!
Working on some other things today, and freshly home from step one of a new crown, I felt such gratitude for so many things. Among those are this beauitful colectiuon of Poet prophets that so lovingly share your heart, spirit, soul, minds, brilliance and beauty in every word.
Blessing for the Poets/Prophets
May peace be in your every step,
across the varied terrain you travel
in your unique, deeply personal life journey.
May Peace be in your every moment,
sheltering you from the storms and
holding you when the shelters are all taken.
May grace be with you in every single motion,
your movement towards or away from wholeness,
forgiveness freely flowing inward and outward.
May grace be a healing balm for a battered spirit,
soothing salve to dissolve shame and guilt,
sacred necessity for a world desperate for balance.
May Hope be in your heart,
filling up with joy as life unfolds,
and healing your precious spirit at the broken places.
May hope birth a new song for your morning,
sweet lullabies to calm your night,
and the map to guide you for all the in between.
May Love be your faithful and fruitful center,
your first response when the legions of hate and disharmony
find their way to your door.
May loving kindness be your every breath,
Inviting you in through an open door,
sharing it with the world even when your breathing is done.
What a gorgeous blessing to wish on absolutely everyone. These lines will stay with me - "May grace be with you in every single motion, / your movement towards or away from wholeness, / forgiveness freely flowing inward and outward." Thank you for your huge heart, Larry!
This blessing/poem feels familiar to me, and I'm realizing that's because you've shared sentiments like these in so many comments to each of us over these months. Everything you say is a blessing.
This is a beautifully kind comment, A. Encountering you in these poetry spaces since last May has been a true blessing and a gift for me. Thank you for being here and so present no matter what may be happening around you.
I want to echo A's feeling that you have blessed us all so consistently with your generous, heartful comments, Larry. This blessing is beautiful, gracious and loving. My nervous system feels cradled by your words <3
Thank you Keith. This is very humbling and heartwarming, coming from your kind, gracious and gentle heart and spirit. I am so grateful to be in this space with you.
Very powerful Larry! I specifically loved this: "May grace be a healing balm for a battered spirit, soothing salve to dissolve shame and guilt, sacred necessity for a world desperate for balance." A beautiful prayer. Amen, and So It Is, and Ashe, and Blessed Be!
Thank you Julie! You are a blessing!
Thank you for sharing such a lovely blessing for all of us Larry!
You are welcome, Karri! It is my blessing to do so!
"Sharing it with the world even when your breathing is done" -- beautiful blessing, Larry!
Thank you Rebekah!
Peace, grace, hope, love. Really nice Larry!
Thank you Billy! Peace to you!
This blessing/poem feels familiar to me, and I'm realizing that's because you've shared sentiments like these in so many comments to each of us over these months. Everything you say is a blessing.
This was a much needed prompt for me. I found it soothing and comforting to create.
May your heart find a purpose
And no purpose be too small.
May your soul find joy in living
Even when living is hard.
May your spirit show love for those around you
As well as for those in distant lands.
May your words offer encouragement
And likewise may your mind accept the same.
May you seek and find,give and take, love and live. But above all may you simply be. Whatever that looks like for you today.
What a beautiful, soothing poem this is, Karri!
Simply be. Well done.
Beautiful, Karri. "May your soul find joy in living/Even when living is hard." This landed solid as a stone. Thank you for sharing <3
Love this Karri! And it is exactly as you said "soothing and comforting".
This is a beautiful blessing, Karri.
This is beautiful, Karri. It reads and flows so well. And you have such a kind and perceptive heart and spirit!
It's soothing and comforting to read, too, Karri -- thank you for this. Some things that stood out for me are the idea of no purpose being too small, needing to be able to accept as well as give encouragement, and allowing ourselves to simply be, "whatever that looks like for you today."
Beautiful poem Lisa! How innocent and sweet to hold our burdens like babies. Taking care of them, and ourselves in the process. Yes "may they wonder what they might still become."
I love poems based in blessing, prayer, wishes and wonders. John O'Donohue was a master at that. Today, here is my humble poem, from a heart that longs for the poetry of life.
.
May you discover and savor
the delicious nature
of this sweet precious life.
A journey that wanders
with no requisite destination.
An unassuming wonder
filled with the breath of curiosity.
.
May these pilgrimages take you
into the core of meaning,
the heart of the matter,
of what is truly essential.
Never a straight line,
as it curves and twists,
goes up and down,
in and out, all around.
Beautifully ephemeral.
Imperfectly majestic.
.
May whatever adversity
that crosses your path
be one of medicinal alchemy.
Hardships of rolling thunders
and lightning bursts
finding clearer skies.
Misfortunes with insatiable mouths
taking, yet uncovering and leaving
your innate untouchable gems.
Fractured pasts and fragmented mirrors,
breaking your heart open
into simple kindness and love.
.
May we together discover
and savor the delicious nature
of this sweet precious life.
Honey made from the nectars
of every element of existence.
A colony of interdependence,
harmoniously abuzz with coherence.
"Filled with the breath of curiosity" - lovely!
That is amazing Julie. And I feel as if the words are washing over me.
The gorgeous imagery you folded into this does indeed invite delicious savoring, Julie. It is an O'Donoghue-esque piece!
Keith, OMG it would take a lot to even don that "O'Donoghue-esque piece." Thank you.
This is so sweet and fragrant, Julie, like the emerging spring waking us from the depths of winter. Your combination and use of words are so beauitful, and I loved this stanza in particular:
"Never a straight line,
as it curves and twists,
goes up and down,
in and out, all around.
Beautifully ephemeral.
Imperfectly majestic."
Your poem and blessing are so renewing and refreshing. Thank you.
Thanks Larry!
So lovely, Julie.
Love your invitation to look at adversity as "medicinal alchemy," and the twist on heartbreak -- "breaking your heart open / into simple kindness and love." Beautiful blessing, Julie!
Thanks Rebekah!
Love the idea of savoring. Everything. Sometimes we rush through whatever it may be, eating, taking a walk, even sleeping to get to the next thing that seems more important but you captured here that just being alive in and of itself is delightful and we have so many opportunities to savor!
SO AGREE! Savoring for me is really being present, taking in and truly tasting, sensing, feeling, what is transpiring. Not rushing into the next this or that, or racing forward into the next taste or sensation.
I read LIsa's post at about the same time as I read this NYT op-ed: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/columbia-protests-israel.html. I didn't care for the op-ed author's message or tone and decided to write a snarky blessing-poem for him. But then while crafting said blessing it became not so snarky anymore -- go figure!
Formatting won't work quite right here, but as a heads-up, it begins with an epigraph. And just to reduce some of the enigma, 4'33" is a John Cage composition that the op-ed author references, and that ended being a very interesting rabbit hole to go down in writing my blessing.
.
There's No Such Thing as Silence: A Blessing
.
"They missed the point. There’s no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out." - John Cage, on 4’33”
.
May you be drummed down from your
listing echo chamber, and for
four minutes and thirty-three seconds
have your ears stuffed with
every human sound:
.
I. Tacet (30”)
.
those made in joy, mirth, exertion,
desperation, despair, panic,
rapture, and rage
.
those made in the first and last
gulps of life
.
II. Tacet (2’23”)
.
those made in hospitals, stadiums,
revival tents, bars, open-air markets,
and closed rooms
.
those made in homes that are loving,
homes that are breaking, homes
with no walls
.
those made in canvas homes
for skin and bones that don’t say
much anymore, just about the flour,
just about the shelling,
just about the ones who just
left
.
III. Tacet (1’40”)
.
those made in and around
a different kind of tent,
sil-nylon most likely, planted
like tulips on that hallowed lawn,
and although nobody is hungry
or getting killed, they are all
doing their very fucking best
to care.
.
They are shouting justice
and singing change
over percussion
you call terrifying;
.
May you stop lying.
May the collective hum of every lung
shiver your blood, brim your eyes,
unspool your neurons
out into the open,
where you may finally
learn to listen.
I am going to have to borrow form both A. and Chuck here - woof! In fact, a whole howling chorus of woofs. This is so powerful, and I felt it so viscerally.
Listening, full-on, tuned-in,
is hard.
(tacit) (understood or implied without being stated) (in music, an extended period of rest)
(Nerd word from my trombone days.)
Nice.
Thank you for the link to McWhorter's op-ed and for this righteous response to his self-righteousness. Thank you for invoking imagery of the one demographic he seems to leave out of his op-ed, the Palestinians who are homeless, starving and breaking. Thank you for giving such beautiful expression to your outrage, which is mine, too. Several of the lines struck me, but something about the image of tents planted like tulips on the hallowed lawn of Columbia really got me.
"May the collective hum of every lung shiver your blood, brim your eyes, unspool your neurons out into the open, where you may finally learn to listen." To borrow a term from Chuck, "Woof." So many feelings here.
Thank you for this powerful witness, Rebekah. I like how you relate that your intention started with a high level of smarminess and evolved into something not quite so. Your wisdom, compassion, passion and empathy turned that shakiness into this very real wish for humanity, for peace, for compassion, for an end to the brutality and perhaps an end to that tired, proven wrong a thousand times concept that violence in response to violence ever brings peace. May the wisdom you demonstrate here be in the hearts and minds of leaders here and there. 🙏🏻
Wow. I think that we all are in agreement on the woofs! This is very powerful and on point!
Children with their ruddy cheeks
Worn knickers
Grass stained, mud smeared
Play on
Oblivious
They cannot comprehend tired
Nothing exists other than this game
We let them play
Reckless
Breathless
There is beauty in their youth
Athleticism
Raw movement
Pain and pleasure and joy
They are so alive
That death seems an impossibility
Incomprehensible
From the floor
They watch the late night show
As their eyes get heavy
And their breathing slows
A gentle reminder
That “maybe it’s time for bed”
Is quickly met with fierce resistance
A refusal
“I’m not tired” spills angry from lips
That don’t lie, they truly believe and battle
Even as they are carried up the stairs
With eyes now closed
And tucked in for the night
We coddle and we care
We use gentle words
And teach kindness
But at some point
It’s very hard to tell exactly when
There is a change of heart
The innocence that surrounded them
Slips away
Never to return
Soon the “I love you”
Turns to “I hate you”
And the beautiful child that was
reflects the harshness of this world
And maybe it was always there
Just biding time
Waiting for the right moment
Waiting to grow up
All the baby talk and cuddling
Just a momentary place holder
For what was inevitable
I remember a story
Of a man who died
And he could see his body
Lying on the hospital table
Outside in the hallway
Others called gently to him
“Come with us” they said kindly
“We will show you the way”
As they walked
The man tired
The kind voices turned a bit more harsh
“Hurry”
“Let’s go”
And the man walked on following the others
Soon
It was very hard to tell exactly when
The others began to curse the man
And it was then he knew
They turned on him
Beating
Biting
Assaulting unthinkable
Unimaginable
Vicious and unrelenting
It was then that the others left him screaming that they hated him
Happy for his demise
The beaten and broken man called out
Blindly
Unknowingly
“Help me”
And in the midst of that darkness
He did see a light and it moved toward him
And he heard the words
“I love you”
All of the pain
All of the brutality
All of the suffering
Was replaced with a peace that goes beyond understanding
As he was enveloped
In a love
Unimaginable
Vicious and unrelenting
Nothing exists other than this game
“The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man”
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It's so interesting to see how you wove together these very universal parenting experiences with the story of this man's experience.
This was not really on prompt but had a long day then saw the great work from everyone including you and that “poem” and story remembrance popped into my head, and just wrote it out and went to bed!
Always write the poem that pops for you, whether or not it's on prompt!
Oof. I got an "I don't love you!" from my 5-year-old today when I told her it was time to use the potty. It happens way too soon.
Oh, that's so hard! Especially when they are little and just crossing that lamentable threshold for the first time.
Ouch, A. Feeling this for/with you :(
Thank you friend. I know she doesn't really mean it at this age, and just doesn't know how to express her anger/ frustration, but it definitely still hurts to hear.
Yes, of course it does...and a very particular kind of hurt, knowing that she doesn't mean it but that she goes there because that is where we go sometimes when we don't know what to do with the intensity of human emotion. A lot to hold. <3
Wow, Billy - this paints such a visceral portrait of how we all have the seeds of all the things in us when we arrive here...and different seasons and conditions nurture different seeds. But under it all is that peace that goes beyond understanding - it's what we come from and where we return. Hopefully, we return there for moments, however brief, while we are in the thick of the madness here.
The first part of this flashed me back to the good times my son and I had long ago writing letters to ball players asking for their autographs. He still has a signed chipper jones rookie card.
Good times, over way too fast.
Very powerful, poignant and provocative, Billy. You capture those shifting moments when even our most beloved can turn, and instead of love throw other more vitriolic and toxic things our way. Sometimes they circle back and sometimes not. Your poem evoked a poem by Wendell Berry called “ Setting Our,” which is about circling. As I read this, I am throwing the ball for Callie, our grand dog who does seem to have boundless energy and infinite capacity for joy. But later, she, and I, will rest.
Wow Billy. This was a lot of emotion But to end with vicious and unrelenting love. Well I guess that’s the hope of it all.
I am reading a weekly piece from the SALT Project, a wonderful community of progressive people of faith andf spirit that I use every week in preparation for Sunday. This week, they offered this wonderful prose/poem from the remarkable Annie Dillard from her book "The Writing Life" and I wanted to share. With gratitude to all of you, to Kaitlin Curtice, Jillian Joy, A. Wilder Westgate, and the brilliant Lisa Jensen, I have been invited, inspired and encouraged to share some of these poems which have flowed since 7th grade in 1968 with more than just me and a few dear family. In the process, I have received so much more in return from your poems and writings and your remarkable hearts and spirits. Thank you.
What follows below is an excerpt from Dillard’s classic, The Writing Life, laid out as a poem for your reading pleasure.
One of the few things I know
about writing is this:
spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it,
all, right away, every time.
Do not hoard what seems good
for a later place in the book,
or for another book;
give it, give it all, give it now.
The impulse to save
something good
for a better place later
is the signal to spend it now.
Something more will arise
for later, something better.
These things fill from behind,
from beneath, like well water.
Similarly, the impulse to keep
to yourself what you have learned
is not only shameful, it is destructive.
Anything you do not give
freely and abundantly
becomes lost to you.
You open your safe
and find ashes.
+ Annie Dillard
What marvelous and marvelously written instructions for writers! I adore these lines - "These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water." Thank you so much for sharing this, Larry, and I am so glad you're sharing your own poems with us, too.
Thank you Coach! 🙏🏻
😂😍
I read that too Larry and it is something I am guilty off. Like I think I’ll run out of things to say so I have to save some back.
Larry, I'm so glad you have opened the treasure trove of your poems to share here. That sharing is a wonderful illustration Annie Dillard's wise and exquisite words...your poems "fill from behind, from beneath, like well water." Thank you for sharing your own words and hers.
You are welcome, Keith. She has been a favorite writer for me since reading "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" in 1978.
I was gifted a copy of that book about 10 years after she wrote it, and it was the first time I read any Annie Dillard. She is brilliant. I mentioned her eclipse essay several times to folks before the recent solar eclipse. So powerful.
I will have to find and read that!
Thank you for sharing this poem (as well as so many parts of yourself) here with us, Larry.
A., you and the other soijurners here, make that sharing so much easier.
What amazing words of wisdom, very moved by this, "give it, give it all, give it now."
Roses are red
violets are purple
without using my freebie
you'll just walk round in circles
"No problem", you keep saying
With a joke on your lips
"I'm too old for a purpose"
"I've reached that eclipse".
So keep shrugging your shoulders
and rolling your eyes,
Keep acting like it's an ordinary part
of your third third demise.
But i must remind you,
you stupid little twit,
You are useless if you keep nixxing
my gift of "give a shit".
Tighten up, chucky-baby.
I love you.
Sincerely,
Your prayer buddy, God.
God has quite a sharp tongue! I sort of wanted to come to your defense, Chuck, but it seems He means well. "My gift of 'give a shit'" - so good!
Ha
I think God picks out words that best suit whoever he's talking to. We get along petty good.
I love this!
This is a great persona poem, Chuck (if God can be called a persona, that is). I love the rhyming and the calling out/calling in of a higher power. I think the idea of "purpose" is the cause of much consternation for many. Even if we're living out a damn good purpose, it can seem like it's not enough. Relatable, very.
You're never too old for a purpose, Chuck! (I'm sure, based on your poem, you know that) I love the perspective here, and you almost always manage to make me chuckle (feels like a weird word to use, given its proximity to your name, but the pun works).
It works just fine 🙂 thanx.
Love it Chuck!
I love the rhyming in this, has quite the rhythm. And yes I agree with Lisa, God has quite the sharp tongue here. But hey, at times we just need a solid wake up call.
"May you forsake walls together" is just gorgeous.
What a really sweet poem and picture of caregiving.
This is a lovely poem and a beautiful prompt. If there is a heaven or a magical realm in the next life, I am certain your poetry will be there.
Blessings to this community
Formed out of bits and bytes
There is woven among the digital
Encouragement
Kindness
Empathy
Love
Hope
Passion
Grace
Goodness
Faith
Fellowship
May God bless each and every one of you-
So lovely! “Formed out of bits and bytes.” I’m wishing blessings to you, too, Billy!