#50 – Forgiveness

The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks to God {Allison Funk) When he returned a second time, the straps of his sandals broken, his robe stained with wine, it was not as easy to forgive. By then his father was long gone himself, leaving me with my other son, the sullen one whose anger is the instrument he

#43 – Compassion

Pandemic What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath— the most sacred of times? Cease from travel. Cease from buying and selling. Give up, just for now, on trying to make the world different than it is. Sing. Pray. Touch only those to whom you commit your life. Center down. And

#36 – Look to Nature

Lines Written in Early Spring {William Wordsworth} I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think

#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

#22 – Time Alone

This is #22 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Here’s another one you might like. How I Go to the Woods Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the

#15 – You are the one you’ve been waiting for

#15 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For. Love After Love {Derek Walcott} The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was

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

#1 – Read More Poetry

Between now and March 22, I am happy to share “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” “Poetry is language against which we have no defenses.” {David Whyte} Do you know that feeling, that feeling of something being so overwhelmingly right and clear that you have no words to describe it? That’s what poetry’s for. Do you

The End of the Beginning

Fifty days from today is Sunday, March 22. Assuming all goes as planned and I have the opportunity to write a post each day between now and then, that will be the day on which I publish #1,000. Between 2007 and 2015 I wrote more than 300 posts. The following year I selected my favorites

Your Busy Heart

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the chamber of commerce but take it also to the forest. The song you heard singing in the leaf when you were a child is singing still. I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four, and the leaf is singing still. ~ from What Can I Say,