Where You Stand

 

Written during a time of strong winds, earlier this month:

Where You Stand

Second to Last

 

As the end of the year draws near, I'm posting a poem I wrote in April 2018. It seems a propos.

Second to Last

Long Night Moon

 

Much to see as I gazed out to the west yesterday in the early hours.

Long Night Moon

Winter Shades of Pale

 

Strength dwells in surprising places where we might not think of looking for it. 

Winter Shades of Pale

If the Body Is Sacred

 

Thanks to Rosemerry Trommer (wordwoman.com) for the Ordinary Sacred: Writing Into Being retreat, facilitated by Marcia Eames-Sheavly, of the Center for Courage and Renewal, and for the prompt that allowed me to write this poem.

If the Body is Sacred

Jesus at the Well

 

Jesus and I just hate it when the diner just off the interstate is closed for any reason.

Jesus at the Well

Obscure Onset

 

It finally came to our lakeside microclimate: a first snow. Some of you have already experienced this, to an uncomfortable degree, perhaps, but have you written your first snow poem for the season? I highly recommend the practice, which I first heard about from Liz Rosenberg (with many thanks!). Click below to listen to mine for 2024.

Obscure Onset

What Would Jesus Buy?

I am so grateful to have readers and listeners like you to share my thoughts with. Here is a Thanksgiving offering.

What Would Jesus Buy?

Advice from the Lake

Listen. You never know what advice you might get from unexpected quarters.

Advice from the Lake

Those Missing Footprints in the Sand

Here's another Jesus prose poem for all you fans out there.

Those Missing Footprints in the Sand

It's Already Too Late

 I've been trying some poetic forms that are a bit different from my usual practice. Here's a pantoum I wrote in September.

It's Already Too Late

Enlightenment

 

Another light installation at MassMoCA that fascinated me, James Turrell's Perfectly Clear, inspired this poem:

Enlightenment

Grounding

 

It's been very windy here. Listen to what blew in:

Grounding

I Scream in my Car

 

I generally process my strong emotions through writing ...

I Scream in my Car

Pitch Black

 

Another poem from my residency at MassMoCA. The light installations by James Turrell were especially interesting to me.

Pitch Black

Everyone Missed Us When We Were Gone

 

First crush. Middle child. 

Everyone Missed Us When We Were Gone

Elegy for Democracy

 

I cried when I voted at our county courthouse on Monday. What if it is the last election?

Elegy for Democracy

PLEASE TOUCH GENTLY

 

During my residency at MassMoCA in North Adams, MA, I worked every morning in this studio. One of the many perks there was free admittance to all areas of the museum. It was my playground, and I spent a couple of hours each day, exploring here and there. Please enjoy this poem, a response to a moving sculpture in Building 6.

PLEASE TOUCH GENTLY

Out of Sight; Still in Mind

 

So much to enjoy as we look around, in October, in upstate New York. I'm storing it all up to remember in the middle of the winter. See your optometrist regularly.

Out of Sight; Still in Mind

Autumn Writes an Email to Starbucks

 

I've been writing some pretty serious stuff during my amazing residency at MassMoCA and the week that followed. Time for some levity.

Autumn Writes an Email to Starbucks

Evocation (a haibun)

 

Just before I left for my residency at MassMoCA, I wrote this haibun about what I used to call bittersweet, because I fell in love with lines from one of Millay's sonnets where someone "loves you less than life, a little less than bittersweet upon a broken wall ..." It is in fact Virginia creeper, here in upstate New York. I managed to revise my own work, but I wonder whether Millay was really sure about what she referred to in her sonnet?

Evocation

Good Behavior

 

I'm back from a week of artist residency at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. I felt like a child in a playground, wandering around the buildings and exhibits. Here's a poem from that productive time:

Good Behavior

Leaving the Lowlands

 

Last week, we spent time in the White Mountains, around Franconia Notch, and North Woodstock.

Leaving the Woodlands

Reach Out; Reach In

 

From the kayak as the sun went down in the west and the moon rose in the east.

And this poem I wrote with a few lines of prompting from John Burroughs, the Ohio Beat Poet Laureate who read in Corning recently:

Reach Out; Reach In

My Mistake

 

September again. I don't understand how. But it is beautiful whether I understand it or not.

My Mistake

Paradigm Shift

 

Playing with the Phantomwise Tarot of Erin Morgenstern, artist and author of Starless Sea and The Night Circus, new favorite books of mine.

Paradigm Shift

Summer Breakfast

and now for something completely different ...

Summer Breakfast 

Tourist Thoughts

It has taken a while, but I've processed a bit of my Mediterranean experience in this poem:

Tourist Thoughts
 

The Stillness of an August Morning

 

Dawn, off the coast of Capri.

The Stillness of an August Morning

Jesus and Joe

 

We've just about recovered from our big July trip to Athens, Rome, and the Mediterranean in between. Here's the newest Jesus poem:

Jesus and Joe

At Ease

 

The photo comes from the recent Mediterranean visit - in the Gulf of Naples, as we were underway on our way to Civitivecchia, a port of Rome.

New computer. New method of voice recording. I hope you're able to click on the blue poem title below and hear my voice clearly.

At Ease

A Trick of Light

I'm back from the Mediterranean! Here's an early August poem, with a photo of a storm front I drove into last night.

A Trick of Light
 

In the Quiet Afternoon

 

So many questions to ask, these days. In the Quiet Afternoon

Unfold! (for AJ, born June 6, 2024)

 

Poetry friends!

Steve and I are preparing to leave on a four-city, 

two-state poetry reading tour

to support the recently published 

Ground and Sky anthology,

Journeys of Sacred Community,

which contains a handful of my poems.

We'll start in Erie, then drive to Pittsburgh,

to Kent State University near Akron, 

and finish in Cleveland.

We recently presented the book in Rochester,

at a special launch event at the bookstore, 

Before Your Quiet Eyes,

hosted by our generous publisher, Ken Kelbaugh.

A week later, we were in Buffalo, 

at Caffe Aroma's Wednesday night open mic,

which is a passionate volcano of an open mic. 

Thanks, Ben, for hosting us there!

Before we leave, I am sending out 

this poem about my new granddaughter,

one of the hardest I've ever written, 

overwhelmed as I am

by emotions and memories. 

I hope you enjoy it.

Unfold! (for AJ)

Release

 

Delphiniums romping in the south flower bed. Sometimes they save me from myself ...

Release

An Abyss Becomes a Well

 

Recently seen in Watkins Glen. And this poem, drafted early in May, finally here for you:

An Abyss Becomes a Well

Wind of Memories

 

Sometimes I trip over one memory in trying to reconstruct another one.

Wind of Memories

In Admiration of the Crow

 

I have not yet taken a photograph of the "palace of light" phenomenon.

In Admiration of the Crow

Family

 

The epigraph for today's poem is from Max Ehrmann's short piece, Desiderata, which was printed on a poster many of us hippies had posted on our dormitory walls. I've thought about its words many times over the years.

Family

Extravaganza of Spring

 

May arrived rather quickly. But perhaps that's a good thing: April was National Poetry Month and it quite exhausted me! Finally, I have begun to write poetry again, so here you go:

Extravaganza of Spring

Daisy Song

 

No, those aren't daisies -- that's a closeup of one of our many hyacinths. But this poem takes place in another garden.

Daisy Song

Over the Falls

 

I know I'm not the only one who thinks about this:

Over the Falls

Clean Dreams

 

 

Messy refrigerator. And here is a poem for you:

Clean Dreams

A Bottomless Bag of French Fries

 

Happy Easter!

A Bottomless Bag of French Fries

Jesus and the Superbowl Ad

 

The Irish soda bread I made last month from a great, easy recipe (https://www.thekitchn.com/irish-soda-bread-recipe-23635136) is my picture for this St. Patrick's Day Sunday. But let's think back to that Sunday last month when most of you were glued to the screen for football, or for expensive advertisements:

Jesus and the Superbowl Ad

What's True

 

All I can do, some days, listening to what's happening in the world, is sigh, shake my head, shed a tear...

What's True

Sensitive Artist at the Beach

 

This poem was generated from images I gleaned while visiting the Pacific shore of Costa Rica at the end of January. Photo was taken in a natural sea cave at one of the many beautiful beaches in Uvita, Puntarenas Province.

Sensitive Artist at the Beach

Richness

 

So many love poems drafted after working from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's inspiring zoom a few weeks ago! But here's one that came from the universe more recently:

Richness

ordinary gifts

 

I've been mining a video of ideas from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on writing love poems, and here is a sample, one of many I am drafting and working on:

ordinary gifts

How It Makes Her Feel

 

Costa Rica was beautiful; COVID when we got back, not so much. But here's a poem from before the trip:

How It Makes Her Feel