oh, daddy : thirty-two years ago today.
One Year When I got to his marker, I sat on it, like sitting on the edge of someone’s bed and I rubbed the smooth, speckled granite. I took some tears from my jaw and neck and started to wash a corner of his stone. Then a black and amber …
change your verbs, change the landscape of your life.
I was deeply honored to wear a Harry Potter robe on Saturday morning and march onto the gorgeous lawn of Guilford College to give the commencement address 30 years after I received my own diploma from there. Here are some photos from that special day, some 3x3x365 posts about it, …
write like your hair is on fire.
I never knew teaching an online writing class could be such a wholehearted, full-bodied experience. But it is. If you are drawn to knowing who you are, where your creativity resides inside you, and what stops you from expressing yourself like your hair is on fire, I hope you will …
poets love the intangible.
Intangible I am in love With the light that illuminates the dust Resting on her hair Convinced that those diamonds are god’s way of saying hello And reminding me that this very common is not so common at all But part of something bigger and much older than Floors I …
poets know where “here” is.
Lost Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you, …
sing it all in your own voice.
My friend Amy McCracken (Richmond on our 3x3x365 blog) has declared today to be the National Day of Tess Ptak. Here’s what she wrote on her Facebook wall this morning: I love the responses that are pouring in: Folks are making suggestions for how to celebrate: Singer/Songwriter Tamara Bailie even …
poets start close in.
Start Close In –David Whyte Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take. Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way of starting the conversation. Start …
poets understand love, and solitude.
After Years Today, from a distance, I saw you walking away, and without a sound the glittering face of a glacier slid into the sea. An ancient oak fell in the Cumberlands, holding only a handful of leaves, and an old woman scattering corn to her chickens looked up for …
can you help me save a high school newspaper?
I “met” high school senior Kala Czanstkowski when she wrote me an email: Hello! My name is Kala Czanstkowski and I am a Senior at Buffalo High School in Buffalo, MN. I’m a journalist/comfort writer and a happy reader (at times) and I just bought your book “Life is a …
poets consider the hands that write this letter
Consider the Hands that Write This Letter after Marina Wilson Consider the hands that write this letter. The left palm pressed flat against the paper, as it has done before, over my heart, in peace or reverence to the sea or some beautiful thing I saw once, felt once: snow …
