International Women's Day
Another side of being a woman is a tremendous feeling of beauty, fragility, delicateness, pleasure. Our bodies can feel the full pulse of life. I am grateful to be born a woman.
Post Insurrection Poem
a little at sea
is me
as I sit
in this gorgeous
sonoma day—
wittering birds
sun shining trees
slight breeze—
coming down
slowly from
hard days
past.
worrying—a loose noose
‘round my neck
while letting in
nature’s gift
slow ly
oh.
the sea
is me.
December Song
A poem/song of December. Sending love in this celebratory season of coming light.
Wear a Mask, Be Patient, Be Safe, Be Loved.
Hope for Emily Dickinson
Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson! Here is a poem of mine about Hope inspired by an Emily Dickinson poem. From my book of poetry, Everyday Mermaid.
YOU MUST WALK THAT LONESOME VALLEY
A timely poem based on a hard-won Black People’s spiritual: You Must Walk That Lonesome Valley. This poem interwoven with the song asks that you face your fears and loves, your darkness and light, your griefs and joys. Doing that you can be uplifted, comforted. Then, you can open to this walk we ALL are doing. You can feel its communion, its support.
We can claim this walk to walk through these complicated, demanding times. We can get to the other side becoming stronger in heart and mind.
I learned this spiritual at summer camp when I was eight. I am grateful for the wisdom of this song that goes back at least to the Civil War. It has been teaching me my whole life.
New Work in Process: Staged lyric poem/Play
Surprise surprise! Rewriting a staged lyric poem/play I wrote over 15 years ago: Drowning in the Same Sea: Thirteen Conversations in the Hereafter with Emily Dickinson and Saint Francis.
Here is my process over 2 weeks reworking 1 paragraph. All changes have to work in moment of conversation and with the rhythm and thru line of the play. whew!! I won’t really know until I have finished the whole play and sat with it.
Hope for Emily Dickinson
Here is a poem called Hope. It was inspired by Emily Dickinson’s famous poem about hope and her explorations of death. Her last written words were, “Called back.”
Death can scare me, so of course that is at the heart of my poem. It is from Everyday Mermaid published by a thousand flowers®.