Letters of My Body Dear Feet. Please stop for a moment – please stop jiggling worriedly or pushing shyly beneath the blanket on the couch. I’ve written a poem for you in Morse code. There, dotted along your tops where the sun tenders that thin skin. I’ve dotted the tops of your big toes – … More Letters of My Body
“I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in jaw-dropping places in my life-in the mountains, at a picturesque restaurant, watching a sunset, on a boat heading to one of the San Juan Islands–where words got in the way of fully feeling and enjoying where I was.” ~Katherine Jenkins. “Lessons from the Monk … More A Roaring Kind of Quiet
On Thursday evenings, I attend a class called “Intuitive Writing.” A small group of us are led by amazingly gifted author and teacher (and just plain happy, kind, and soulful human being), Katherine Jenkins. Her book “Lessons from the Monk I Married” has been translated into multiple languages and she writes a blog with the … More The Art of “I Am”
Nature doesn’t take more than it needs. When it rains, the drops are welcomed for what they are. Used up quietly. Sunshine is thanked in the way leaves warm to green and birds chime at daybreak. Nature waits and blooms and fades, pushing into or pulling against a river’s current or sandy soil. Nature finds a … More Nature, Nurture
Months of a deep fog, of getting hit hard with death so that it makes life seem so strange and wrong. No, death isn’t new. Not when you’re 40. But then it happens that the loss is so supremely different than any before. When it becomes the loss of not just what you had, but … More Grief Gives Way to a Pencil
Dear C, Grief is a ninja. Did you know this? I think you probably did, after your dad died. I think behind your teary smiles, then, eventually, your bigger smiles, your trip-taking, dinner-party planning, that the grief ninja was hovering, kicking you in the knees now and then. We knew you were sad, we saw … More Grief is a Ninja
Do you read The Paris Review Interviews? Beautiful bits of writerly wisdom and insight. A recent link in my Twitter feed pointed me to the 1986 interview of W.S. Merwin, one of the first poets I read in my second stint of university, a time when I was feeling so very connected to the art of words. Of the many ways to understand and define … More W.S. Merwin On Poetry: “The completeness of life.”
