Attention is the doorway to gratitude

I took this from Brain Pickings: “Botanist and nature writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, who has written beautifully about the art of attentiveness to life at all scales, examines the revelations of the garden in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (public library) — an unusual and richly rewarding book blending

Enlighten the Darkness of my heart

I love this whimsical painting of Saint Francis of Assisi! Here is one of his prayers: Most High, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart, and give me right faith, certain hope, and perfect charity, wisdom and understanding, Lord, that I may carry out your holy and true command. Amen.     <a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/enlighten/”>Enlighten</a&gt;

Exhilaration, Energy, Release

Here’s a poem I wrote about twenty years ago: In Tandem   The fact is: when you ride in front, you steer. The person in the back controls the speed. The pedals go as quickly as they need to keep one’s partner accurate with fear. A panic on the handlebars will clear confusion as to

The Cavalry of Woe

  Here is a poem by Emily Dickinson: #138 To fight aloud, is very brave – But gallanter, I know Who charge within the bosom The Calvalry of Wo – Who win, and nations do not see – Who fall – and none observe – Whose dying eyes, no Country Regards with patriot love –

Falls: a risky business when you’re over 65

Probably risky before that, but so much more in later years. This is the first time I haven’t posted a poem.  I don’t have one with the word “risky” in it, and I don’t have one about falls.  But I should write one. I have fallen five or six times in the last three years:

Garlic and sapphires in the mud

    Here is one stanza from T.S. Eliot’s poem  “Four Quartets”  :   Garlic and sapphires in the mud Clot the bedded axle-tree. The trilling wire in the blood Sings below inveterate scars Appeasing long forgotten wars. The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars

Long Before the Present Conflagration

  Long before the present fires that are decimating the vineyards and homes in Sonoma County, California, another fire destroyed the newly completed Wolf House, intended home of American writer Jack Lond and his wife.   I visited the ruins in 1996 and wrote this poem:   Jack London’s House Warming   Wolf House lurks alone

Newly Cloaked in Purpose

Here’s a disturbing poem from the great contemporary American poet Rae Armantrout: Errands   By Rae Armantrout   The old to-and-fro   is newly cloaked in purpose. There’s a jumble of hair and teeth under the bedclothes in the forest.   “The better to eat you with,” it says, and nibbles us until we laugh.

An Exceptionally Ingenious Poem

Here is a poem by the American poet Andrew Hudgins.  I love to use it in my “Introduction to Poetry” class to watch the students figure it out. It’s an exceptional what I would call  “Riddle Poem.”  The solution is the photo at the end of the poem: Snake   by Andrew Hudgins   When we

Heliotrope

Here’s a poem I wrote about twenty years ago. Heliotrope   Rare purple flower, blue-eyed miracle, you have bloomed for me.   I have seen you wind your blind face to the sun, stretch your thin leaf in the darkest corner to the suns voice calling poetry – a word that your near deafness hears.