reading and writing in the land of overwhelm
Meditation
Imagine
you are
the sky,
You are not
the clouds, thoughts
billowed.
You transcend
the clouds.
You are
the sky,
Imagine
the clouds—
billowed thoughts,
you are
not.
The clouds,
you transcend.
The sky.
You are.
Imagine.
You
transcend billowed
thoughts, healing
rain, cleansing
breeze, wash of
gray drifting
by,
remember.
Remember
you are
the sky.
(photo by Jeff Paul. Poem inspired by a meditation practice detailed in the book Way of the Winding Path by Eve Eschner Hogan)
I went into the woods to write
a story about going into the woods.
When I got there (The Retreat at Pointers Ridge)
I realized I didn’t want to write the story,
which is to say, I didn’t want to write the story
just yet.
What I wanted to write, it turns out, was
poetry.
I’ve been writing poems since I was ten years old.
Or before.
The first one I memorized (of my own creation) was
about a snowflake. The snowflake, to be clear,
was not my creation. The poem, delightfully, was.
No one tells you, when you are young,
that you can journey well as a poet.
No one tells you, when you are in the middle of life,
that you can journey well as a poet.
What will they say when I am old …
or will I simply no
longer hear them?
I joined the Marines, once,
long ago. I learned the language
of conflict. I learned love.
Hope. Fear.
I went to college. I learned
the same things, only
from books.
It was in the woods where I
remembered: I speak
more than one tongue.
I know
more than one path.
I am
from more than one home.
I am more
than one woman.
I contain multitudes
still, I contain
multitudes I
contain still
multitudes
multitudes I
contain.
Still.
(All photo poems are from The Retreat at Pointers Ridge, South Dakota. The painted door is a creation by artist Jennifer White. Don’t know her work yet? Wait. The photo of the sky out the window of the Writer’s Cabin was inspired by a different photo, made by Jeff Paul. One moment after the other, I tried to see the world as Jeff sees the world, as Jennifer sees the world, as I see the world. I am better for the experience.)
in front of josephine’s
flowers like prayer
flags breathing
coaxing intention
from the breeze
yes
you wish only
for light
light shall be
yours and
light you
shall be
Note: yesterday, I went downtown to talk photography with a group of women, some strangers, some friends. Emily spoke eloquently of light. Walking home later, I happened upon dangling flowers in front of a shop. They reminded me, equally, of Tibetan prayer flags and poetry. And so I was blessed. And so I was healed.
Each year, right around the time the earliest
blossoms begin slipping
from their branches,
a fresh series of sculptures appear
in the heart of our downtown.
We embark, as ever, upon the reasonable,
which is to say:
We take a walk.
We open our eyes.
We greet the world.
Not all change is struggle.
Some change arrives as a carpet of petals,
unfurling beneath your feet.
She calls me away
from the table where I work
Come, sit
with me instead
It is far better here
with my sighing body
my thoughtful head
resting in your lap
*photo by Jane Walsh
Our Poets Have No Time for Poetry
by lori walsh
Our poets stand in their kitchens, hands,
wrists, elbows plunged deep into sudsy water,
hot as they can tolerate,
Red sauce loosening and lifting from
the plate, leaving a gleaming disk of white
But no pen. No paper.
White plate skipping to the countertop
White towel lapping up those unwritten words
Our poets work as bottled water salesmen,
hawkers of the clean and the clear,
Their names embroidered onto patches sewn into Carhart jackets
They blow their lunch breaks in the children’s section of
Barnes & Noble, shopping for their kids, passing the poetry section by
as the tintinnabulation of their cell phones wages its delicate battle
Their clipboards pinch carbon copy forms with deliciously blank spaces—
Client name. Delivery date. What will you do with your wild and precious life?
Our poets are children, breathing shallow and deliberate
under the weight of expectation
Binder, backpack, water bottle sloshing for maximum hydration
because school is an endurance sport
Topic sentences, Annotations, Double spacing, Conventions
and Voice, oh yes, don’t forget Voice
You have none. You should really work on that.
Their jeans are stained with ink, their skin, stained with ink because they still
have so much to say they cannot help
themselves
Our poets have no time for poetry
And we have no time for our poets
We stand apart, All of us,
Noticing nothing,
Save the fact that we are, All of us,
Thirsty
writing is about seeing, long before it is about writing
seeing is about pausing
pausing, about trusting
trusting, living
living
loving