Poetry Archives | Page 11 of 24

We are saying thank you

I just found this poem for the first time the other day. I like it because it is not an easy poem, it is an invitation to that fully human journey of holding both blessing and curse. Offering gratitude when life is going well is fairly simple. Giving thanks in the midst of uncertainty, sorrow, or suffering is another story entirely. Thanksgiving Blessings! Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and

November 26, 2008

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving I have been trying to read the script cut in these hills— a language carved in the shimmer of stubble and the solid lines of soil, spoken in the thud of apples falling and the rasp of corn stalks finally bare. The pheasants shout it with a rusty creak as they gather in the fallen grain, the blackbirds sing it over their shoulders in parting, and gold leaf illuminates the manuscript where it is written in the trees. Transcribed onto my human tongue I believe it might sound like a lullaby, or the simplest grace at table. Across the

November 23, 2008

Prayers for Petunia

This has been one of those weeks where both joy and sorrow dwell together. It has been a week of wonderful news and opportunities, but it has also been a week where I have not been feeling that well. Even more difficult was to bring my sweet Petunia into the vet today because of a small lump we found in her chest the other day and find out she needs surgery on Monday to have it removed and biopsied because it is quite possible she has cancer. So yesterday I asked you to celebrate with me, and today I ask

November 21, 2008

Sparrow

(photo of sparrow taken while sitting on a park bench in Riga, Latvia this summer) -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

November 17, 2008

Wage Peace

Wage peace with your breath. Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds. Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields. Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees. Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact. Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud. Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers. Make soup. Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages. Learn to knit, and make a hat. Think of chaos as dancing raspberries, imagine grief as the outbreath of

November 3, 2008

I long for You so much (a time of retreat)

I long for You so much I have even begun to travel Where I have never been before. -Hafiz (excerpt) Last week on Tuesday I piled my things into the car, the essentials like my journal, my yoga mat, my camera, and of course my sweet Petunia. We headed north on I-5 to the Canadian border. Two elements of getting to a retreat that feel important to me are a border crossing and a ferry ride and this time I had the gift of both. When I arrived at the guard booth though, to my disappointment the guard waved me through with half a

October 21, 2008

“What comes from silence”

How to be a Poet (to remind myself) Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill-more of each than you have-inspiration, work, growing older, patience, for patience joins time to eternity. Any readers who like your work, doubt their judgment. Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air. Shun electric wire. Communicate slowly. Live a three-dimensioned life; stay away from screens. Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in. There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places. Accept what comes from silence. Make

September 17, 2008

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We are saying thank you

Giving Thanks

Prayers for Petunia

Sparrow

Wage Peace

I long for You so much (a time of retreat)

“What comes from silence”

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