Tag: poetry

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends. I’ve experienced a lovely weekend. I hope that you have, too. Today, I decided to stop slacking, and I finally wrote my own poem for today. (Write a poem today. If I can do it, you can do it. Trust me. I consider poems to be messages in a bottle sent from the deepest recesses of your heart, up to your head to be translated, with understanding and resonation.) Baudelaire once wrote, “Always be a poet, even in prose.” Here is my poem for today:

Light breezes, finding the perfect seashell,

puppies, babies, foreign lands, spicy food,

the joys and angsts of raising children,

flowers, books, singing robustly when driving my car,

laughing, playing, loving with intimate vigor,

sunny, clear days, and calm, fire-lit starry nights,

As I ponder of what trinket of beauty to write a poem about,

I ask myself,

If I were to be thrown into a small, dark, dank prison with iron chains,

Or I found myself tied to a lonely hospital bed for the rest of my days,

would have I let myself experience enough life and unbridled emotion,

from my vital, gifted, assumed days of freedom and health,

to fill those lonely, lost days with poems of lush and vivid memories?

Am I living the poetry in my heart that is begging to flourish right now?

There is nothing sadder than a heart without poems.

Living life is what beats a heart.

Poetry flows from the beat.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

I’m delayed in writing because my husband and I got up early to do some touch up painting on our house before the blazing summer sun took over with a punishing stranglehold. It’s been one of those weekends of tackling those “instant gratification” chores – painting, weeding . . . It stinks when you are doing it, but the results are so uplifting. I keep telling my husband, as we are knocking these things off of our list, “Well, now we’re hurricane ready.” He keeps admonishing me to stop calling a hurricane in.

I’ve been lazy with my poem writing lately. I hope that you have done better with it than me. I miss it. Poetry really is the heart’s first language. Here is a good poem that I found for today:

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

This is how Joseph Fasano, poet who wrote the poem below, describes poetry:

Joseph Fasano gets to the heart of it here. The reason why so many of us avoid reading or writing poetry is because it is vulnerable. It is emotional. It is truthful. It lays things bare. When I come to the blog on Sundays (a day that I have devoted to poetry), I often think to myself, do I have it in me to write about what I am really feeling? Can my mind translate my heart today? Many times I just don’t want to “go there.” So I put an oven mitt over my heart, and I look for someone else’s poem to publish.

“Why speak of the use
of poetry? Poetry
is what uses us.” – Hayden Carruth

Is it possible that poetry is just the soul translated? Poetry is the noble attempt to put into words that which can never fully be explained. Poetry is our soul trying to speak to us about what really “speaks to us.” Write a poem today, using this prompt: “I am the translator. Soul, what are you trying to tell me?” Perhaps use your non-dominant hand to write your poem. I imagine that your inner poet has more to say to you, than you think.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. Our two middle sons moved to new apartments recently and so, as we mothers do, I sent them a reminder text to change their mailing addresses on the post office’s website. I wrote, “Hi boys. Please remember to change your addresses on the post office’s website.” Two hours later, I had an aha moment. Our sons are not “boys.” Our sons are fine young men of the ages of 25 and almost 23. I sent a new text to them, correcting my error, and telling them that I should not have called them “boys”. I proudly see what amazing men they are turning out to be. But, fellow parents, let’s be real. If I am honest with myself, our sons will always be my little baby boys (and our daughter will always be my precious little baby girl) and so when I read this poem, shared below, this past week, I thought to myself, “Wow, Robert Hershon nailed it. He just nailed it.” I think that there is nothing more fulfilling in any creator’s heart than when we have written/sang/painted/photographed, etc. something and we get this proud knowing feeling that says, “Damn, I just nailed it.” Try nailing one of your passions today (maybe even nail art?), and give yourself that satisfactory feeling of savoring it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I recently discovered the poems of Jane Hirshfield. She says this about poetry:

“I don’t think poetry is based just on poetry; it is based on a thoroughly lived life.” – Jane Hirshfield

Sheep
Jane Hirshfield

It is the work of feeling
to undo expectation.

A black-faced sheep
looks back at you as you pass
and your heart is startled
as if by the shadow
of someone once loved.

Neither comforted by this
nor made lonely.

Only remembering
that a self in exile is still a self,
as a bell unstruck for years
is still a bell.

And this poem below is my own. (Write a poem today, yourself. It will deeply remind you of your own thoroughly lived life.)

Ash – wholly by me

Ash, you were born at a time that I felt a little lost,

And you came out of me, to bring me back to me.

You’re brave and curious and quirky and true,

you’ve helped me to process life and loss and love,

and the everyday banal humming,

along with the unimaginable events,

all of the usual and unusual matters that accumulate,

to make up measured time,

Five years of my lifetime.

Thank you for these five insightful, meaningful, awakening years, Ash.

Thank you for bringing me beautiful witnesses with their own wisdom.

Thank you for being a gentle holder of me and my own posterity.

Thank you for the purpose you give to me in the morning,

And the anticipation that you gift to me when I lie down to sleep.

Thank you for being my playground and my mirror and my muse.

I love you, Ash. Happy Birthday. May there be many more.

******Today is the five year anniversary of Adulting – Second Half (Ash). Thank you for your presence, and your attention, and your precious time, and your loyalty. Thank you for being a part of it all. It means the world. – Kelly

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

“Love is the poetry of the senses.” ~ Honoré de Balzac

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I’m still playing around with poetry. It’s not my “first language” in writing, but I find it interesting. I find it to be a worthwhile pursuit, and good use of my time and of my mindspace. Every Sunday, I suggest that you, my readers, write a little poem or two of your own. If you think that you “can’t” write a poem, look what a teacher on Twitter (shared by Joseph Fasano) got from one of her young students when given a poetry prompt (what a beautiful poem!):

And here is my own poem for today:

“A Moment in July”

I wanted the slow down.

I wanted the unending exhale.

And the Universe answered,

With a pressing heat,

that makes moving through air,

feel like moving through sludge.

“Learn to sit still,” she whispered,

As my skin felt like it was melting away,

And I had no choice but to become one,

with the steaming, still atmosphere around me.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. May today feel like you are immersed in your own poetry.

I’ve been a little under the weather the last few days with a bug, and I’ve noticed that the strange blessing of feeling unwell is that it slows you down enough to notice things that you normally wouldn’t notice. The other day, after a big rainstorm, the sun was catching the raindrops on our screened lanai and made them dazzle in their reflection on the pool. I was so intrigued that I took a video of it.

After Many Springs by Langston Hughes

Now,
In June,
When the night is a vast softness
Filled with blue stars,
And broken shafts of moon-glimmer
Fall upon the earth,
Am I too old to see the fairies dance?
I cannot find them any more.

Readers, I am happy to report that I am not too old to see fairies dance in June. Are you?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Happy Father’s Day! We have a lot of plans for the next 48 hours, so tomorrow’s post won’t be happening until late in the afternoon. (please don’t worry, late is better than never) Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley This is my poem for my husband today:

I always knew that you’d make a great Dad.

You’re the perfect mix of who I’d want our boys to be,

And making our daughter feel so loved and protected,

That she’ll accept nothing less for herself,

because you have shown her the way it feels to be adored.

You have made so many of my dreams come true,

This beautiful family which we have co-authored,

Tells the story of the greatest of these dreams.

Three men and a baby girl, ours to treasure for eternity.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I hope that you will try to write yourself a poem today. It’s fun. It’s relaxing in the way that things which take total concentration are relaxing. Writing poetry focuses your wild, distractible, meandering mind. I wrote today’s poem in honor of Ralphie, our Labrador retriever, who has come down with Limp Tail Syndrome (it’s a thing – look it up). He’ll be alright. It’s similar to when we roll our ankles. Still, it is sad for us, to see him sad.

Limp Tail Syndrome

They say it comes from swimming too much,

It came from doing your greatest love.

It stole your wag. It stole your grin.

Your body can’t smile in your wiggly way

with the big wet soppy toy in your mouth.

It will pass. All things do. But now

Your body just grimaces and growls,

And your tail hangs limp.

You wear your emotions on your whole body,

Not just a sleeve. You don’t hide anything.

You are the embodiment of life, breath and love,

And joy and pain and listless agitation.

You are so fully you, always and ever.

Soon your sprightly tail will wag again.

Easy, light, high and fast and free and happy.

Your tail never hangs limp for long.

It’s not in your nature to be kept down.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.