Poem for a Sunday Morning

February 16                                               An early morning fog. In fair weather, the shy past keeps its distance. Old loves, old regrets, old humiliations look on from afar. They stand back under the trees. No

#35 – Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously

David Byrne, with his performances of Once in a Lifetime and Toe Jam on Saturday Night Live, shows us how it’s done. (And, if the videos I’ve posted below don’t show up on your device, do a quick search…it’s worth it.) Cool + Fun + Talented + Fearless + Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously =

#29 – Little Things Are Big Things

Mossbawn: Sunlight {Seamus Heaney} There was a sunlit absence. The helmeted pump in the yard heated its iron, water honeyed in the slung bucket and the sun stood like a griddle cooling against the wall of each long afternoon. So, her hands scuffled over the bakeboard, the reddening stove sent its plaque of heat against

#8 – Take a break

This is #8 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” – Anne Lamott If you are reading this on Sunday afternoon, I hope it’s from an easy chair or the sofa. I hope you’ve just returned from a hike,

Poem for a Sunday Morning

What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade  {Brad Aaron Modlin} Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas, how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark. After

#6 – You Are Creative

This is #6 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” “There is no such thing as creative and non-creative people, only people who use their creativity and people who don’t.” — Brené Brown Say to a room full of 1st graders, “Raise your hand if you are creative” and every hand goes up. Say

Do you dare?

It was above the timber line. The steady march of the forest had stopped as if some invisible barrier had been erected beyond which no trees dared move in a single file. Beyond was barrenness, sheer rocks, snow patches and strong untrammeled winds. Here and there were short tufts of evergreen bushes that had somehow

Poem for a Sunday Morning

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3) I know, you never intended to be in this world. But you’re in it all the same. So why not get started immediately. I mean, belonging to it. There is so much to admire, to weep over. And to write music or poems about. Bless the feet

The Reviews That Matter

I was scrolling through the customer reviews of a movie a friend recommended and I got a terrible case of whiplash. “5 Stars,” “2 Stars,” “5 Stars,” “1 Star,” and on it went. Just at the edge of falling down the list much further than I had ever intended, I remembered something crucial: my friend

The Consolation of Completion (Redux)

Some further thoughts on yesterday’s post, The Consolation of Completion: Many of our workplaces create an ethos of task completion and goal achievement at any cost. This habituation to the measurable allows us to feel good about ourselves at the end of the day but it fails to take into account the fact that most of