Good morning, my dearest readers. I hope that this Sunday finds you well. I devote Sundays to poetry. I write a poem and I courageously put my poem out there into the ethersphere, for no other reason than I can. And so can you. The world never died from bad poetry, and many worlds have been inspired by good poetry. Poetry is a release for the writer, and a spark of thought for the reader. Be brave and bold. Write a poem today and put it out there for others to catch your spirit. Here is my poem for today:
August
I suppose that August was created in order to
Help me to empathize with my food.
August is like those last couple minutes of cooking
Sundays, on the blog, are devoted to poetry. Writing in prose feels like communicating with others, whereas writing poetry feels like communicating with oneself. When I write in prose, I am trying to express myself in a way that I better understand myself and my feelings, and I hope that this expression, clearly communicates what I am thinking and knowing and feeling about anything or any circumstance. Prose desires validation and attention and clear articulation. On the other hand, poetry is really the most private form of writing. It is always open-ended, and deeply affected by individual interpretation. Prose is like a portrait painting, and poetry is more like abstract art. Write yourself a poem today. You deserve one. Here is my poem for today:
Sometimes, some days a poem just doesn’t happen
The riddle of where it is, is like a mermaid’s fin.
It prefers to stay a mystery below the surface,
An unhealed wound, without a kiss.
Bringing it to light feels too harsh and too soon.
So the sweet little poem, grows safely in its private cocoon.
So today, when you arrived here, you did not get a poem.
Instead, you got the poet.
She is here, not because of her words, but because of her love for you,
I hope that you deeply know it.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning, readers. Sundays are devoted to poetry. Today I am devoted to being quiet and within myself. I hope that you find some time today, to listen to, and to be with just yourself. Sunday is the perfect day to commune with, and to connect to the deepest part of you. Here is my poem for today:
“The Safe”
I handed you your life back yesterday.
All in a tidy little safe.
It has your birth certificate.
It holds your baptism certificate.
It also contains your passport, your SSN card, and your draft card.
I decided to add the addresses of all those who have loved you,
since the day that you were born, maybe even before.
It has a two dollar bill from your late grandfather.
He thought that it would be neat for you to have it.
And some savings bonds from my late grandmother.
She thought that it would be wise for you to have them.
Oh, and the space in between all of the paper stuff,
that space holds the mighty force of my love,
so anytime that you open the tidy, little safe,
you will be instantly surrounded and shielded,
By the strongest, most powerful, wisest, most faithful and loyal,
Part of me. My love will surround you then, and forever.
As it always has, and it always will. My love surrounds you.
Welcome to the quietest, most introspective day on the blog. Welcome to our poetry workshop. What is the song of your soul? Write a poem. You’ll find out.
Yesterday, my husband and I were making newspaper bricks which he uses as firestarters for his very simple, old-school grill. My husband loves to read the WSJ in paper form, but I think that he has an Earth Mother guilt complex about this. (We had compost piles long before compost piles became a hipster status symbol.) Therefore, to alleviate his conscience, my husband bought this cool contraption on Amazon that condenses wet newspapers into paper bricks. Our back porch is a currently a brick drying platform, and our hands have a not so attractive grayish tinge to them. (And these are the things that make me love him, and “us”, like I do.) As we were placing the papers into the water bucket, my husband stopped what he was doing and handed a sheet of the newspaper to me. He and I both knew that it had to be one of Soul Sunday’s poems. This one is by the great writer, Walt Whitman:
I have a poem of my own to share today, too. Here it is:
Confession to My Children
My dearest children,
For years I have fervently prayed for your strength, and your health, and your safety, and your vitality, and your happiness, and your sense of purpose, and your creativity, and your faith, but I often left out one crucial element in my prayers.
I often forgot to pray for myself.
I often forgot to surrender.
I forgot to pray for guidance on how to help you with your strength, and your health, and your safety, and your vitality, and your happiness, and your sense of purpose, and your creativity and your faith.
I often forgot to ask God for my own strength, and health, and safety, and vitality and happiness, and sense of purpose, and creativity and faith, so that God could work through me, to best mother you. And to best be a model for you.
In my prayers, I often acted as if I had to make a choice. I always chose you, arrogantly forgetting that God has no hierarchies. Love is all.
By hinging all of my abundance on your abundance, I erased me. And I burdened you. And I disrespected God.
Luckily, God doesn’t wait for permission to work through our lives. God never leaves. God works quietly. My prayers are always for you, my deepest loves, but they are also for me, too. We are all God’s children. And now, I often just pray for my eyes to be opened to the all-encompassing Love which gently and evenly holds All of us, dear beyond measure.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning. I hope that you are in a peaceful, comfortable, allowing state of being right now. My friend recently reminded me of the popular quote by Dr. Seuss, as shown above. I repeated it a few times to my family, as we were in the airport, on our way home, from the wonderful, and highly anticipated summer family vacation that we had just experienced together. I thought to myself that the quote is also rather apropos for times that are awful in life, and then finally over, too. It would just be the quote in reverse, “Don’t cry because it happened. Smile because it is over.”
Anyway, back to business: Sundays are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. Poetry is the attempt to put emotion into words, like no other form of writing can. Write a poem today. Just start writing out your feelings, with no rhyme or reason (pun intended). You may surprise yourself by how beautiful and poignant your words that describe an element of your life’s experience can be. I consider Sundays to be an experimental poetry workshop for all of us. Here is my poem for today:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning, soul mates. My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry at Adulting – Second Half. On Sundays, I either write a poem or I share a poem written by another poet. Have you ever heard the phrase, “Shakespeare’s a poet, and doesn’t know it”? To me, this phrase means that when you speak or write from the heart, in your own unique voice, you are creating poetry, often without even realizing it. You are a poet. Let the words flow on to the page, and read them to yourself. I think that you will be amazed. Please feel free and comfortable, to share the poems that you write, here in my Comments section. It is generous and brave to share what is written and transcribed from your heart. Here’s my poem for today:
Bromeliad
I purchased you for a few dollars, a little pink plant, in a little pink pot.
“Support Breast Cancer Awareness” the courageous sign read, and I thought,
“Yes, that feels right.”
I thought that they chose you, for your lovely color, to match their ribbon of pink.
But now I realize, like so many other times, I was wrong with what I think.
This is what I now know, from the deepest depths of my soul:
You were chosen for your health, vitality, fertility, resilience, strength and hope.
I can’t keep you down, my little pink plant, in a little pink pot.
You refuse to look away from the sun, you decline to rot.
Instead, you multiply.
You reach new heights.
You continue to grow, no matter where you are planted.
You are beautiful.
You are ALIVE.
You are health, vitality, fertility, resilience, strength and hope.
Thank you for being such a vital member of my garden’s colorful shower.
Your lessons are as lovely as your grand, bursting, bold, pink flower.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning, soulmates. As my regular readers know, Sunday is devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. Poems are soultalk. Poems evoke more emotion and wonder and intimacy than your average prose. Write a poem today. Share it in my Comments, if you like. On Sundays, sometimes I write a poem and sometimes I share a poem. Today I will try to do both. The above poem, “Trees”, by Joyce Kilmer is a classic, and it is wonderful. Incidentally, Joyce Kilmer was an American man and sadly, he was killed in action, during World War I. Here is my poem for the day:
“The Seekers”
Two treasure hunters scour the fruitful land,
Eager to see what bounty they can command.
They dredge the sea, for ancient coins, and brilliant jewels.
One seeker is single minded with his vision and his tools.
He fills his ornate box with plenty of wealth and weight.
His overspilling bounty is his focused life’s work’s fate.
The other seeker is easily distracted by the beauty all around him,
Often instead of searching in waters, he chooses to softly swim.
He takes time to nourish the creatures that share his borrowed space.
He stares at the starry skies, in wonder of this magical place.
Who in the end, ends up with the greatest treasure?
I suppose it all depends on how you choose to measure.
Seeker one is tethered to a heavy, worldly treasure, with which is hard to part,
Whereas seeker two, is much lighter. His wondrous treasure is stored within his heart.
Good morning, soul mates. I hope that you all are having a lovely, restful yet rejuvenating holiday weekend. Welcome to summer! My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry. Poetry is much like the “summer” of language. It is slow and contemplative and full and sometimes heavy, meandering and inquisitive, full of background humming. On Sundays, I either write a poem or I share a poem, written by someone else, which has moved me. And also on Sundays, I implore you to write a poem, as well. Please feel safe and comfortable enough to share your poem in my Comments section. Today’s poem is a classic, popular poem by a poet named Marge Piercy. It speaks of the first days of summer.
MORE THAN ENOUGH by Marge Piercy
The first lily of June opens its red mouth. All over the sand road where we walk multiflora rose climbs trees cascading white or pink blossoms, simple, intense the scene drifting like colored mist.
The arrowhead is spreading its creamy clumps of flower and the blackberries are blooming in the thickets. Season of joy for the bee. The green will never again be so green, so purely and lushly
new, grass lifting its wheaty seedheads into the wind. Rich fresh wine of June, we stagger into you smeared with pollen, overcome as the turtle laying her eggs in roadside sand.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning, soulmates. We are experiencing an extraordinary and lovely weekend here. What is more beautiful than the lush, fully green, fully ripe, late spring days, hinting at the free-spirited summer around the corner? My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry, a poetry workshop of sorts. Usually I write a poem, although sometimes I share a poem by another poet who has moved me. As always, I strongly encourage you to share your poems, or at the very least, to write one. Writing a poem is the perfect way to have a conversation with your heart and with your soul. Here’s my poem for the day:
Beautiful Days
Today is beautiful outside. We don’t often count the beautiful days.
The counted days are the fierce, savage days,
which insist on being experienced by rapid force,
And held in our memories by fear and prowling.
The beautiful days leave the door open, with a soothing invitation,
to bring inside, the calm, clear colors, and the soft shimmering of the outside,
to softly cleanse and to shine up and to clear up the view,
for the inner core of our very being and awareness.
The beautiful days are gentle and quiet and nourishing,
and far more prevalent than we ever truly care to admit.
The dramatic storms, with their ravenous anger and destruction,
hold us in rapt attention and rumination and trepidation.
The vicious days have made industries of defense and calculation.
The beautiful days just offer themselves freely. Love requires no invitation.
Soak in the beauty of the day. And expect more beautiful days.
Storms are just angry reminders to remember to count the beautiful days.
The storms are just intermittent nudges to bask in the plethora of beautiful days.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Bonus thought for the day: It doesn’t really matter what happens. We have very little control about what happens, in most cases. What matters is how we handle what happens.
Good morning, soul mates. I hope that this Sunday finds you tranquil and at peace. Here at the blog, Sunday is devoted to poetry. Poetry is a pouring out of one’s heart, and the seeping out of one’s soul. Poetry always evokes mood, whether it be funny or sad or reflective or passionate. Poetry is a great way to get to know yourself. Write a poem today. Share it in my Comments section, if you like. You’ll be inspired by yourself. Here is my poem for today:
I love that all of the roads that we take, are well worn by experience.
Every twist and turn has a memory of you and me tied with it.
Our nights are filled with remembrances of different stages of you and me.
And we laugh and we smile and all of our looks between us, hold so much knowing.
We are the shared holders and keepers of a lovely urn,
A conjoint container full of stories of life, and brimming with living.
May we each hold our own handle carefully and reverently,
That the vessel of our ongoing adventure, may not be shattered nor destroyed.
When it is time for our shared potiche to be shelved,
May it be a relic that deserves a spotlight for posterity.
May it be a holder of the highest form of love and unity,
Inside of it, two eternal flames forming one fire.
Until then, we carry it on together down the road.
It is my lightest, and my easiest, and my most precious load,
the love that has created, and continues to fuel, our shared story.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
