World, where does it hurt?

I read the last part of this poem to my church on the Sunday after 9/11. It feels pretty appropriate now, too.

i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.

what they did yesterday afternoon
– Warsan Shire

they set my aunts house on fire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who used to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?
i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.

The Miracle of Morning by Amanda Gorman, Youth Poet Laureate

Singularity by Marie Howe

Into Three Pines by Mavis Moon

Map of Three Pines, Inspector Gamache mysteries by Louise Penny. https://www.louisepenny.com/

I propped up the pillows and got into bed.

The sunlight poured through the panes.
I opened my book, lit by the light,
and entered Three Pines in Quebec.
I chose a table at the bistro.
Olivier's latte and almond croissant.
My body filled with contentment and sweetness.

I read this article about writing a lyric poem and thought I would try it.

Possibilities by Wisława Szymborska

Amanda Palmer Reads Polish Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska’s Glorious Poem “Possibilities”

I prefer movies.

I prefer cats.

I prefer the oaks along the Warta.

I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.

I prefer myself liking people

to myself loving mankind.

I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.

I prefer the color green.

I prefer not to maintain

that reason is to blame for everything.

I prefer exceptions.

I prefer to leave early.

I prefer talking to doctors about something else.

I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems

to the absurdity of not writing poems.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries

that can be celebrated every day.

I prefer moralists

who promise me nothing.

I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.

I prefer the earth in civvies.

I prefer conquered to conquering countries.

I prefer having some reservations.

I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.

I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages.

I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.

I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.

I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.

I prefer desk drawers.

I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here

to many things I’ve also left unsaid.

I prefer zeroes on the loose

to those lined up behind a cipher.

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.

I prefer to knock on wood.

I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.

I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility

that existence has its own reason for being.

A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH by Maya Angelou

Click to go to Soundcloud and hear Janna Levin's beautiful reading.

A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

“A Brave and Startling Truth” was published in a commemorative booklet in 1995 and was later included in Maya Angelou: The Complete Poetry

This poem is so full, isn't it? So many truths, not just one "brave and startling truth." The truth of our small planet, the things we consider wonders of the world, the fact we are of and from and on this earth, the contrast of the pain we mete out with our actions and words, yet the beauty this same "we" gifts to others, the possibility we are, and the power we are to be "the true wonder of this world."

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/05/09/a-brave-and-startling-truth-maya-angelou/

Drawings by Children

I heard this poem today and made a little video with a drawing by each of the girls: Lydia, Violet, Delaney.

Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.


Love the line, "What is all this juice and all this joy?" Brought to my attention by an Instagram post by Padraig O'Tuama.

How to Read Poetry

The Beginner's Guide To Reading (And Loving) Poetry

Emily Torres

How To Read Poetry

My first experience with poetry was sugary-sweet and dripping in rhyme. Dr. Seuss’s melodic stories captured my youthful attention, and I loved listening to how the words bounced off the page to form music of their own.

When I began writing poetry as a preteen, I invested my allowance in a rhyming dictionary. I rhymed the words “love” and “above” more often than I’d care to admit (with an occasional “dove” in there, too—WHY). I put my whole heart into poems I can only laugh about today; I’m amused and heart warmed by the complexity I was trying to express with my ten-year-old vocabulary.

“Do you have to sit in a velvet housecoat, surrounded by mahogany bookshelves and a crackling fire, to be considered ‘someone who reads poetry’? ”

As I grew and my language developed further, I began reading the poetry my teachers fed to me in high school. Enchanted by the depths of Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, I wanted more. But reading poetry outside of a structured academic space proved complicated for me—how do you read, enjoy, analyze, and remember the pieces you most love? Do you read 10 poems in rapid succession? One at a time? Do you have to sit in a velvet housecoat, surrounded by mahogany bookshelves and a crackling fire, to be considered ‘someone who reads poetry’? How do you even start?

“There is no proper way to start,” says Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of Poetry Unbound, a new poetry podcast from The On Being Project. “Poetry is a vast ocean. In fact, it’s multiple vast oceans. And each ocean has thousands of beaches leading into it. Nobody will know everything about all the poetry. So if you’re interested, start where you are.”

“Poetry is a vast ocean. In fact, it’s multiple vast oceans. And each ocean has thousands of beaches leading into it. Nobody will know everything about all the poetry. So if you’re interested, start where you are.”

— PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA

How To Choose What Poetry To Read

Poetry is a personal experience—for both the writer and the reader. The world is full of lyrical collections and melodical prose, and the poetry canon is growing more vibrant each passing day. Where does one even begin?

Poetry anthologies are an excellent place to start because they offer a range of voices within time periods, places, or topics. Ó Tuama recommends “The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry” edited by Ilya Kaminsky, and also navigating local bookstores and publishers, like Bloodaxe Books, that feature poetry arranged by topic.

To continuously feed yourself new poetry, you can find local literary magazines, subscribe to Poetry Magazine, or sign up for daily poetry emails here or here. For thoughtful and immersive audio poetry, we love the Poetry Unbound podcast, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama. He recommends starting with the poems featured on that podcast, and also shared some of his other favorite poets: Marie Howe; Eavan Boland; Raymond Antrobus; Ilya Kaminsky (especially “Deaf Republic”); Joy Harjo; and Lorna Goodison.

Once you find a favorite poet, Ó Tuama suggests following the trail of their influences: “A quick online search might help you find out who the poetic influences on your favorite poet are. Reading Raymond Antrobus’ recent book of poetry ‘The Perseverance’ led me to read more of Caroline Bird’s work, a poet he thanks and admires enormously. Reading Seamus Heaney might lead you to Patrick Kavanagh. Reading Tracy K. Smith might lead you to Emily Dickinson.“

How To Read A Poem

You’ve selected the poem you want to read—congratulations! Now it’s time for the business of reading it. 

1. EXAMINE THE TITLE AND THE SHAPE OF THE POEM.

Before I read a poem, I examine the way it takes up space on the page. I find single-page poems with neat stanzas appealing—although a concrete poem (a poem formatted in a specific shape) is always playful and attention-grabbing. Perhaps meandering and novelesque text immerses you, or maybe you prefer short poems that could fit neatly on a box of tic-tacs.

Next, read the title of the poem—how does it make you feel? How does the title fit the shape of the poem? If the title is sad, let the shape of the poem inform the nuance of the emotion—if it’s short and sparse, maybe it’s coming from a place of desolation or desperation. Long chaotic forms might mean it’s coming from a place of confusion or anger.

Now, remove your expectations and begin reading.

2. READ THE POEM AS YOU NORMALLY READ ANYTHING.

“Notice where in the poem you react—maybe your stomach churns at a particular phrase, or you hold your breath at a certain line. Explore the feelings that come up as you read. ”

Reading poetry doesn’t require a highfalutin approach; you can read as you’d read anything else. On the first pass through, absorb whatever it is that arises upon first impression. Notice where in the poem you react—maybe your stomach churns at a particular phrase, or you hold your breath at a certain line. Explore the feelings that come up as you read.

“I listen to myself, and wonder what the poem is drawing out of me,” says Ó Tuama. “What is it that the poem knows about me that I don't yet know about me? Maybe it provides a bit of comfort for a part of my life that's comfortless. Or maybe it provides challenge where I need it.”

3. RE-READ FOR MEANING. 

If the poem captivates you or rouses your emotions, you can uncover even more information on a second read through. Half of the time, I dive right into a re-read. Otherwise, I add a bookmark to remind me to read it again later and move on to the next poem. 

“You might come back years later to a particular poem, only to find that it connects to your heart in ways it didn’t before.”

If you didn’t feel a connection to the piece, it’s okay to skip over re-reading the poem (although I do recommend giving it another read-through). You might come back years later to a particular poem, only to find that it connects to your heart in ways it didn’t before.

The second read-through is where I look up definitions and pronunciations of words I don’t know and examine any footnotes. If there’s historical context or the poem is referencing a specific event I’m not familiar with, I’ll look that up, too. Having this knowledge adds weight to the poem, and makes each reading feel like a reverence. (Rita Dove’s “Parsley” is a devastation and opened up a part of history I had never learned.)

I look for little clues I may have missed—word choices that bolster the metaphor, repetitions that indicate a deeper theme, or unusual line breaks that alter the meaning of a phrase. Here is where I also consider the speaker of the poem. Is it the poet themselves? Is it an omniscient being, or a single narrow perspective? Who is the audience of this poem? This will further illuminate its meaning (and the intention). 

Look, too, for where the poem offers a moment of surprise. Ó Tuama explains it like this: “Sometimes a poem has a ‘turn,' a place where it pivots on itself. This might be expected, or it might be shocking. Nicole Sealey has a gorgeous love poem in her book. It's a beautiful love poem, and the final line says, ‘how I'll miss you when you're dead.’ It's shocking, it's powerful, and makes you re-read the entire poem.”

4. RE-READ FOR SOUND (OUT LOUD, IF YOU CAN).

Next, try reading the poem out loud or search for readings of the poem online. This is where the music of a poem emerges, and you can feel the shape of each word and line as you move through it.

“Often contemporary poetry is called 'Lyric Poetry.' The word 'lyric' comes from the word 'Lyre' referring to how ancient Greeks used to recite poetry while strumming on the lyre, a musical instrument like a small harp,” explains Ó Tuama. “These days people don't strum little harps while reciting poetry, but poetry is still called 'Lyric'—meaning it has music in it. You can hear the music too: in the sounds of the words, perhaps the vowel sounds, or the rhythm, or rhyme, or the spaces in between words. So I try to listen to the internal music of the poem.”

Rhyme is the easiest to spot, although slant rhymes and internal rhymes can be more difficult to catch on the first read-through. Recurring sounds add emotional impact—sharp, quick vowel sounds like “eye,” “aye,” and “eee” can add energy, while longer sounds like “ooo,” “eh,” and “uh” can slow the pace and add depth. 

“Sound is no accident in poetry, so consider how word choice, rhythm, and cadence make the poem feel.”

Alliteration is another easy device to identify, where there’s repetition in the first letter of each word (think “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”). This method is one of my favorites, and it reminds me to pay close attention to why and how those exact letters are being used. Sound is no accident in poetry, so consider how word choice, rhythm, and cadence make the poem feel.

Pay attention to punctuation, too. When a line breaks in the middle of a sentence, I like to take a minuscule pause (shorter than the length of an inhale). If that feels awkward, you can read the poem like a normal sentence and allow periods and commas to inform breath. Allow yourself the chance to read it a few ways and at varied paces so that you can settle into the natural flow of the poem. If it’s a poem you want to ruminate on, record yourself reading it and listen back a few times.

5. ADD CONTEXT TO PAINT A FULL PICTURE.

Finally, return to the beginning. How does the title play with the rest of the poem? Does the shape of the poem have anything to do with its meaning? Dig into the author’s history; look at the publication date and consider the world around the poem when it was first released. Consider where the poem lives: Was it released as part of the author’s poetry book, or was it published in a literary magazine? If you’re reading it as part of a collection (such as Best American Poetry), why do you think this particular poem was selected? Who selected it?

“I’m always interested in what the hunger of the poem is. Why did this poem need to be written? What is its intelligence? What is it yearning for?”

— PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA

“I'm always interested in what the hunger of the poem is,” Ó Tuama says. “Why did this poem need to be written? What is its intelligence? What is it yearning for? Treating the poem with this kind of curiosity, I find it draws on parts of my own story.”

You can also take a look at the form of the poem to infer a little more meaning. The sonnet, for example, is a traditional form for love poems. Writers can use form as a nod to adjacent themes or as a way to highlight the contrast between the theme and form. I am enchanted by the villanelle form, and Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art is a villanelle I’ve enjoyed returning to since I first read it a decade ago.

There’s always more to learn from a poem you love; just when you think you’ve gleaned everything from its meaning, it can strike you with a new insight. Bookmark or note the poems that inspire you, and revisit them when you’re feeling lonely, homesick, or untethered. Which poems are those, you ask? You’ll know which ones speak directly to your heart when you read them.💛

Poetry vs. Prose

David Whyte on On Being

Prose is about something.

Well, I always say that poetry is language against which you have no defenses. Otherwise, it’s not poetry. It’s prose, which is about something.

https://onbeing.org/programs/david-whyte-the-conversational-nature-of-reality/#transcript

Elizabeth Alexander on On Being

https://onbeing.org/programs/elizabeth-alexander-words-that-shimmer/#transcript

DR. ALEXANDER:So let’s turn to that.

[reading: “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe”]

Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we ourselves
(though Sterling Brown said

“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I'”),
digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

So I think that the truth of that poem is not about true things or things that happened, but rather in the question: are we not of interest to each other?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43308/kitchenette-building

kitchenette building

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong
Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.”
But could a dream send up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms
Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?
We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

Gwendolyn Brooks, "kitchenette building" from Selected Poems, published by Harper & Row. Copyright © 1963 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.

Source: Selected Poems (Harper & Row, 1963)

Beatitude Benediction by Nadia Bolz-Weber

A Benediction 

(Spanish colonial icon, 18th-19th century)

Maybe the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus’ lavish blessing of the people around him on that hillside who his world—like ours—didn’t seem to have much time for: people in pain, people who work for peace instead of profit, people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance.

Maybe Jesus was simply blessing the ones around him that day who didn’t otherwise receive blessing, who had come to believe that, for them, blessings would never be in the cards. I mean, come on, doesn’t that just sound like something Jesus would do? Extravagantly throwing around blessings as though they grew on trees?

So I imagine Jesus standing among us offering some new beatitudes:

Blessed are the agnostics.

Blessed are they who doubt. Those who aren’t sure, who can still be surprised.

Blessed are they who are spiritually impoverished and therefore not so certain about everything that they no longer take in new information.

Blessed are those who have nothing to offer. Blessed are the preschoolers who cut in line at communion. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are they for whom death is not an abstraction.

Blessed are they who have buried their loved ones, for whom tears could fill an ocean. Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like.

Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried.

Blessed are they who don’t have the luxury of taking things for granted anymore.

Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else.

Blessed are those who “still aren’t over it yet.”

Blessed are those who mourn. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are those who no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex workers and the night-shift street sweepers.

Blessed are the forgotten. Blessed are the closeted.

Blessed are the unemployed, the unimpressive, the underrepresented.

Blessed are the teens who have to figure out ways to hide the new cuts on their arms. Blessed are the meek.

You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are the wrongly accused, the ones who never catch a break, the ones for whom life is hard, for Jesus chose to surround himself with people like them.

Blessed are those without documentation. Blessed are the ones without lobbyists.

Blessed are foster kids and special-ed kids and every other kid who just wants to feel safe and loved.

Blessed are those who make terrible business decisions for the sake of people.

Blessed are the burned-out social workers and the overworked teachers and the pro bono case takers.

Blessed are the kindhearted football players and the fundraising trophy wives.

Blessed are the kids who step between the bullies and the weak. Blessed are they who hear that they are forgiven.

Blessed is everyone who has ever forgiven me when I didn’t deserve it.

Blessed are the merciful, for they totally get it.

I imagine Jesus standing here blessing us all because I believe that is our Lord’s nature. Because, after all, it was Jesus who had all the powers of the universe at his disposal but did not consider his equality with God something to be exploited. Instead, he came to us in the most vulnerable of ways, as a powerless, flesh-and-blood newborn. As if to say, “You may hate your bodies, but I am blessing all human flesh. You may admire strength and might, but I am blessing all human weakness. You may seek power, but I am blessing all human vulnerability.” This Jesus whom we follow cried at the tomb of his friend and turned the other cheek and forgave those who hung him on a cross. Because he was God’s Beatitude—God’s blessing to the weak in a world that admires only the strong.

God bless you.

-Nadia Bolz-Weber

The road

The last poem David read was "Santiago," which he said was about "the arrival place." There is a lot of reference to "the road." Of course I thought of "the road not taken" (Robert Frost). And Bilbo Baggins' poem, "The Road Goes ever on and on"  (from the poem by J.R.R. Tolkien).

When I heard these lines:

so that one day you realized that what you wanted
had already happened long ago and in the dwelling place
you had lived in before you began,
and that every step along the way, you had carried
the heart and the mind and the promise
that first set you off and drew you on and that you were
more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way
than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach

I thought of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" and how the good witch told her that, for her whole journey on the yellow brick road, all along she had the means to go home.

Then, perhaps a silly thought when I heard these lines:

and turning the corner at what you thought was the end
of the road, you found just a simple reflection,
and a clear revelation beneath the face looking back
and beneath it another invitation, all in one glimpse

I thought of the children's song "The Bear Went over the Mountain." "The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see...he saw another mountain, he saw another mountain he saw another mountain, and what do you think he did?...He climbed the other mountain..."

The reference to finding "just a simple reflection" of "the face looking back" made me remember Mom telling Dad, "Wherever you go, there you are."

Santiago

The road seen, then not seen, the hillside
hiding then revealing the way you should take,
the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
when you thought you would fall,
and the way forward always in the end
the way that you followed, the way that carried you
into your future, that brought you to this place,
no matter that it sometimes took your promise from you,
no matter that it had to break your heart along the way:
the sense of having walked from far inside yourself
out into the revelation, to have risked yourself
for something that seemed to stand both inside you
and far beyond you, that called you back
to the only road in the end you could follow, walking
as you did, in your rags of love and speaking in the voice
that by night became a prayer for safe arrival,
so that one day you realized that what you wanted
had already happened long ago and in the dwelling place
you had lived in before you began,
and that every step along the way, you had carried
the heart and the mind and the promise
that first set you off and drew you on and that you were
more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way
than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach:
as if, all along, you had thought the end point might be a city
with golden towers, and cheering crowds,
and turning the corner at what you thought was the end
of the road, you found just a simple reflection,
and a clear revelation beneath the face looking back
and beneath it another invitation, all in one glimpse:
like a person and a place you had sought forever,
like a broad field of freedom that beckoned you beyond;
like another life, and the road still stretching on.

-- David Whyte
from Pilgrim
©2012 Many Rivers Press

What do you think you don't deserve?

On our last day of A Weekend with David Whyte, he gave us a list of things to think of in order to live a deeper, fuller life. He talked about trying to figure out what you want in life. That made me think of the Jesuits asking the question, what is the desire of your heart? God wants you to have the desire of your heart. David said to explore what you think you don't deserve in life. It can help you figure out what you want.

I don't deserve...

Farewell letter

FAREWELL LETTER
(For All the Mothers Who Have Passed Away)

She wrote me a letter
after her death
and I remember
a kind of happy light
falling on the envelope
as I sat by the rose tree
on her old bench
at the back door,
so surprised by its arrival
wondering what she would say,
looking up before I could open it
and laughing to myself
in silent expectation.

‘Dear son, it is time
for me to leave you.
I am afraid that the words
you are used to hearing
are no longer mine to give,
they are gone and mingled
back in the world
where it is no longer
in my power
to be their first
original author
nor their last loving bearer.
You can hear
motherly
words of affection now
only from your own mouth
and only
when you speak them
to those
who stand
motherless
before you.

As for me I must forsake
adulthood
and be bound gladly
to a new childhood.
You must understand
this apprenticeship
demands of me
an elemental innocence
from everything
I ever held in my hands.
I know your generous soul
is well able to let me go
you will in the end
be happy to know
my God was true
and I find myself
after loving you all so long,
in the wide,
infinite mercy
of being mothered myself.'

P.S. All of your intuitions are true.
...

FAREWELL LETTER
in River Flow
New & Selected Poems
Many Rivers Press © David Whyte

David said that when you lose someone, you have this ancient feeling that they're just about to visit. He told us he wrote this poem from a dream he had after his mother's death. The poem describes what happened in the dream.

As he read it, I imagined Cori, Luke, and Zach reading this letter, as if it were from me to them. It made me cry. It's good, though.

David said his friend John O'Donohue lived believing, "Wasn't it amazing to have been in the world together at the same time?"

Let the dead have their own life?

This poem had a line that has remained with me ever since, "so you can let the one you have lost alone, so that you can let the one you have lost have their own life and even their own death without you." Let the one you have lost have their own life? Let the dead person have their own life? It sounds kind of strange. I believe there is life after death, but it's all a mystery to me. I don't imagine them going about life in some similar way to what I do every day. But what do I know? Nothing about that!

David told a story about a dream he had about his dad, who had passed away. In the dream his dad was busy doing something (I can't remember what) and seemed almost too busy to talk to David. This morning I finished reading A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis*, and at the end he wrote about something that seemed like a visit from Joy (his wife, whose death and Lewis' grief is what the book is about), although he would not use such concrete words to describe it. He wrote:

And more than once, that impression which can't describe except by saying that it's like the sound of a chuckle in the darkness.

And:

It's the quality of last night's experience--not what it proves but what it was--that makes it worth putting down. It was quite incredibly unemotional. Just the impression of her mind momentarily facing my own...

Not at all a rapturous reunion of lovers. Much more like getting a telephone call or a wire from her about some practical arrangement...No sense of joy or sorrow. No love even, in our ordinary sense. No un-love. I had never in any mood imagined the dead as being so--well, so business-like. Yet there was an extreme and cheerful intimacy.

Business-like. Intriguing, isn't it?

WINTER GRIEF

Let the rest
in this rested place
rest for you.

Let the birds sing
and the geese call
and the sky race
from west to east
when you cannot raise
a wing to fly.

Let evening
trace your loss
in the stonework
against a fading sky.

So that
you can give up
and give in
and be given back to,
so that you can let
winter
come and live
fully inside you,
so that
you can
retrace
the loving path
of heartbreak
that brought you here.

So you can cry alone
and be alone
so you can let
yourself alone
to be lost,
so you can
let the one
you have lost
alone, so that
you can let
the one
you have lost
have their
own life
and even
their own
death
without you.

So the world
and everyone
who has ever lived
and ever died
can come and go
as they please.

So you can
let yourself
not know, what
not knowing
means.

So that
you can be
even more generous
in your letting go
than they
were
in their leaving.

So that you can
let winter
be winter.

So that you can let
the world alone
to think of spring.
…
WINTER GRIEF
From
THE BELL AND THE BLACKBIRD
Poetry by David Whyte
APRIL 2018 © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

*C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, HarperCollins, c. 1961. Pp. 71, 73.

Friendship - multiple forgivenesses

I bought the book Consolations at the Weekend with David Whyte. He takes a list of 52 words and writes about them - short reflections rather than poems. I keep remembering what he said about friendship, and in particular that "friendship only survives with multiple forgivenesses." It pleases me to hear "forgiveness" made into a noun like that. Each forgiveness (or less poetically, each act of forgiveness) like a stone of a path, multiple forgivenesses creating a beautiful path through friendship.

It struck me that we need multiple forgivenesses in our church life, too. Brad used to say that one of the good things about going to church is that you spend time with people you otherwise would not touch with a 10-foot pole. Yes, and we all have to forgive each other over and over. Nadia Bolz-Weber said that when she welcomed new members to her church, she would tell them, "We're going to mess up. Someone is going to say something that hurts, someone is going to do something stupid. I hope you'll stick around to see the beauty God makes of this mess." Multiple forgivenesses will create beauty.

FRIENDSHIP is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die.  ~~from Consolations by David Whyte

Turn sideways into the light

Isn't that a beautiful line? "Turn sideways into the light." It's from a Celtic myth about some amazing tribe of people who went into battle knowing they would be defeated. They stood facing the enemy and as the enemy charged toward them, they turned sideways into the light and disappeared.

I also like "Be impatient with easy explanations / and teach that part of the mind / that wants to know everything / not to begin questions it cannot answer." More and more it gives me peace not to try to solve everything, not to try to find the answer to every question. That place where you live in an unanswered question is often called tense, but it seems like there can be a point of balance where the tension goes away.

David wrote this poem after visiting "the well of Patrick overlooking Galway Bay." He said it is a favorite spot of his and many others, "a place of silence and respite, inviting you to make a friend of silence, the spaciousness of silence."

TOBAR PHADRAIC

Turn sideways into the light as they say
the old ones did and disappear
into the originality of it all.

Be impatient with easy explanations
and teach that part of the mind
that wants to know everything
not to begin questions it cannot answer.

Walk the green road above the bay
and the low glinting fields
toward the evening sun, let that Atlantic
gleam be ahead of you and the gray light
of the bay below you, until you catch,
down on your left, the break in the wall,
for just above in the shadows
you’ll find it hidden, a curved arm
of rock holding the water close to the mountain,
a just-lit surface smoothing a scattering of coins,
and in the niche above, notes to the dead
and supplications for those who still live
.
But for now, you are alone with the transfiguration
and ask no healing for your own
but look down as if looking through time,
as if through a rent veil from the other
side of the question you’ve refused to ask.

And you remember now, that clear stream
of generosity from which you drank,
how as a child your arms could rise and your palms
turn out to take the blessing of the world.

TOBAR PHADRAIC
In RIVER FLOW: New and Selected Poems
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

Simply breathing

We heard an Indian flutist. Before he started he said he offered "the easy prayer of simply breathing."

Cori

Cleave

by David Whyte

To hold together and to split apart

at one and the same time,

like the shock of being born,

breathing in this world

while lamenting for the one we’ve left. 

No one needs to tell us

we are already on our onward way,

no one has to remind us

of our everyday and intimate

embrace

with disappearance. 

We were born saying goodbye

to what we love,

we were born

in a beautiful reluctance

to be here,

not quite ready 

to breathe in this new world,

we are here and we are almost not,

we are present while still not

wanting to admit we have arrived. 

Not quite arrived in our minds

yet always arriving in the body,

always growing older

while trying to grow younger,

always in the act

of catching up,

of saying hello

or saying goodbye

finding strangely

in each new and imagined future

the still-lived memory

of our previous life.

Anyone in my family who read;

...like the shock of being born,
breathing in this world
while lamenting for the one we’ve left...

and

...We were born saying goodbye
to what we love,
we were born
in a beautiful reluctance
to be here,

not quite ready
to breathe in this new world,...

would know why I named this entry "Cori." It is a well-known family story that Cori screamed when she was born (and any time she cried thereafter, for about 4 months). The nurses in the delivery room had to yell to each other as they weighed her. I always said Cori did not like being taken from that warm womb, and she let us all know.

May what I'm about to say be a gift

Easter Blessing
(For John O’Donohue)

by David Whyte

The blessing of the morning light to you,
may it find you even in your invisible
appearances, may you be seen to have risen
from some other place you know and have known
in the darkness and that that carries all you need.
May you see what is hidden in you
as a place of hospitality and shadowed shelter,
may that hidden darkness be your gift to give,
may you hold that shadow to the light
and the silence of that shelter to the word of the light,
may you join all of your previous disappearances
with this new appearance, this new morning,
this being seen again, new and newly alive.

from The Bell and the Blackbird

At the Weekend With David Whyte, David told a lot of stories about John O'Donahue, his beloved friend, also a poet. I learned of both David Whyte and John O'Donohue from "On Being." This poem is in memory of an Easter blessing John gave at a sunrise service in Ireland. David said that it is very unusual to have sunrise services in Ireland -- "no one wants to get up that early."

My notes show that during this talk, David said, "What has not yet been said in you, may it become as gift to give." I thought it was part of the poem or of John O'Donohue's message. But I do not see it in either. I don't know where it came from. It pierced me. If only my words could be a gift, always. So often I have regretted my words. I need this blessing.

Easter Blessing
by John O'Donohue

"On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry -- old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling -- and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have.

We don't realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren't put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously. The dawn that is rising this Easter morning is a gift to our hearts and we are meant to celebrate it and to carry away from this holy, ancient place the gifts of healing and light and the courage of a new beginning."

Dawn Mass Reflections at Corcomroe Abbey

Walking on the Pastures of Wonder
John O'Donohue in conversation with John Quinn
Corcomroe Abbey