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 say thank you we are standing by the water looking out in different directions back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you in a culture up to its chin in shame living in

Dear darkening ground, you’ve endured so patiently the walls we’ve built, perhaps you’ll give the cities one more hour and grant the churches and cloisters two, And those that labor—maybe you’ll let their work grip them another five hours, or seven before you become forest again, and widening wilderness in that hour of inconceivable terror when you take back your name from all things. Just give me a little more time! I want to love the things as no one has thought to love them, until they’re real and ripe and worthy of you. I want only seven days, seven

The Road Here is the road: the light comes and goes then returns again. Be gentle with your fellow travelers as they move through the world of stone and stars whirling with you yet every one alone. The road waits. Do not ask questions but when it invites you to dance at daybreak, say yes. Each step is the journey; a single note the song. -Arlene Gay Levine from Bless the Day, ed. by June Cotner I have returned from an amazing week.  For the last six days my teaching partner Betsey Beckman and I have been immersed in our Awakening

Preface to Leaves of Grass (excerpt) Love the earth and sun and the animals,despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,stand up for the stupid and crazy,devote your income and labor to others,hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,have patience and indulgence toward the people,take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,or to any man or number of men,go freely with powerful uneducated persons,and with the young, and with the mothers or families,re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,and dismiss whatever insults your own soul;and your very flesh shall be a great poem….