1964. Irvington, Baltimore. Summer.
Evening. A crown of honeysuckle and the bells of Saint Joseph's Monastery, just blocks away. The green fields of a park along Maiden Choice Run; its creek now low with the heat of summer. Sunset, with mosquitos, bats, and a dank humidity. Running, with my big sister after me, and my aunt on a bench, smoking. Where is my mother? Working. Where is my father? I don't know, I seldom knew. An early, waxing moon, and later, ice cream. We run on and on, glowing as children sometimes do, and then, suddenly wing’d, we fly.
jobe
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James
A poem by Kenji Miyazawa:
DEPARTURE ON A DIFFERENT ROAD
The earth grates at my feet
When I land alone and without destination
Between the moon's bewitchment
And a monstrous plate of snow
The void blackened by cold
Fronts hollow against my brow
...the musicians die with faces of sheet
infants come into a watercoloured world of mist...
A blue pointed phosphorescence
Rapidly gathers the wind
Busily floating up and sinking in
Stitching up the blanket of snow
...ah a black parade of acacia...
I have been under no illusion thus far
This road that I have taken tonight
Failing all in my duties at every turn
Is not the proper path
It will benefit no one
Yet I am helpless to find another way
...the trace of a plate-thin white fissure
in a crystal sky of milky lustre...
The snow makes what I see more solitary than an ocean
With its ceaseless flickering
Kenji Miyazawa 1896 — 1933
After the dinner is finished
and the plates are washed and put away
a silence envelopes the house
and holds it like a loved child
in a soft room — settle down
and read while the evening lasts
a favorite book or a new one
or put pen to paper
and write the stories of your life
then when the night becomes full
and the trees outside are sleeping
send two prayers out into the universe
the first prayer is to give thanks
and the second prayer is full of hope
for those you lovejobe
The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.
Pema Chödrön
Across the years
I have ladled out my life
one large spoonful at a time.
Soon, blessedly, I shall be
empty at last.jobe
Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
Carl Sandburg
This is good. First you have Robert Bly and William Stafford chatting about a line from William Blake, and what it can mean to poets. Then Stafford reads his poem The Way It Is. And all of it is under three minutes. Shazam. See? Even those of us with tiny attention spans can enjoy it.
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