blessing the boats
by Lucille Clifton
(at St. Mary’s)
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that
Archive for the ‘Absence’ Category
Sailing through: blessing the boats by Lucille Clifton
Posted in Absence, Anger, Art, Building, Community, Economic Crisis, Hard Times, Journey, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, War, tagged Absence, Anger, Art, Building, Community, Drama, Economic Crisis, Faith, Fear, Fiction, Grief, Hard Times, Journey, Liam Rector, Life, Life and How to Live It, Loss, Nonfiction, Poetry, Politics, Prayer, Presidential Election, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, War, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on October 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Peace on Earth by Williams Carlos Williams
Posted in Absence, Art, Faith, Liam Rector, Life, tagged Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Drama, Faith, Fear, Fiction, Gratitude, Hobos, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Life and How to Live It, Nonfiction, Peace, Poetry, Poets, Politics, Presidential Election, William Carlos Williams, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on September 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I just can’t write, not now. Too much weight and worry, drifts of sadness. I’ll let others who do it so much better lead me now.
Williams has always brought me peace.
Peace on Earth
by William Carlos Williams
The Archer is wake!
The Swan is flying!
Gold against blue
An Arrow is lying.
There is hunting in heaven—
Sleep safe till [...]
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 By Martin Espada
Posted in Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Gratitude, Grief, Memory, Remembrance, tagged Absence, Anger, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Gratitude, Grief, How Poetry Heals, Liam Rector, Life, Life and How to Live It, Loss, Martin Espada, Memory, Poetry, Poets, Rebuilding, Remembrance, The Twin Towers, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on September 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100
by Martín Espada
for the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Center
Alabanza. Praise the cook with the shaven head
and a tattoo on his shoulder that said Oye,
a blue-eyed [...]
Concordance (Working Backward in Sleep) by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Posted in Absence, Art, Bennington, Building, Community, Faith, Gratitude, Journey, Liam Rector, Life, Poetry, Writing, tagged Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Faith, Gratitude, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Life and How to Live It, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Poetry, Poets, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Writing, Writing Community on August 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Concordance (Working Backward in Sleep)
by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Working backward in sleep, the
last thing you numbed to is what
wakes you.
What if that image were Eros as
words?
What would it be like if you
contemplated my words and I felt
you?
Animals, an owl, frog, open their
eyes, and a mirror forms on the
ground.
When insight comes in a dream,
and events the next day
illuminate [...]
For the Executive Director of the Fallen
Posted in Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Community, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Writing, tagged Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Community, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Life and How to Live It, Loss, Poetry, Poetry Magazine, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Tom Sleigh, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on August 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
For the Executive Director of the Fallen
by Tom Sleigh
In memoriam Liam Rector
The little boy crying out
Weenie Weenie
in self-panicking delight,
waving his little cock
under the banner
of the sun, seemed pure Blake,
all anarchy and energy,
an innocence unfrightened
of itself that shook the lake’s
waters and unsettled
the strained composures
and appointed certainties
of whatever Absolute Speaker
had been ranting in my brain:
Peace Through Strength
Justice [...]
In Memory: Mahmoud Darwish
Posted in Absence, Art, Books, Community, Grief, Journey, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, Transitions, Writing, tagged Absence, Art, Community, Fiction, Gratitude, Grief, Journey, Language, Life, Loss, Mahmoud Darwish, Nonfiction, Poetry, Prayer, Transitions, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on August 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Poet Mahmoud Darwish dies at 67
Mahmoud Darwish, the world’s most recognized Palestinian poet, whose prose gave voice to the Palestinian experience of exile, occupation and infighting, died yesterday in Houston, Texas. He was 67. He died following open heart surgery.
Born to a Muslim family in historical Palestine, he emerged as a Palestinian cultural icon who [...]
“Father of that silence”–Larry Levis
Posted in Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Writing, tagged Absence, Amy Tudor, Art, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Larry Levis, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Poets, Prayer, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on August 9, 2008 | 2 Comments »
From “Linnets” by Larry Levis
This is a good page.
It is blank,
and getting blanker.
My mother and father
are falling asleep over it.
My brother is finishing a cigarette;
he looks at the blank moon.
My sisters walk gravely in circles.
My wife sees through it, through blankness.
My friends stop laughing, they listen
to the wind in a room in Fresno, to the [...]
Nothing Twice by Wislawa Szymborska
Posted in Absence, Anger, Art, Bennington, Books, Community, Faith, Family, Fiction, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Work, Writing, tagged Absence, Anger, Art, Bennington, Books, Community, Faith, Family, Fiction, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Work, Writing on August 5, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Nothing Twice
by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies [...]
