Sticks and stones are hard on bones.

Aimed with angry art,

Words can sting like anything.

But silence breaks the heart.

--Phyllis McGinley

The Habit of Perfection

Elected Silence, sing to me

And beat upon my whorlèd ear,

Pipe me to pastures still and be

The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:

It is the shut, the curfew sent

From there where all surrenders come

Which only make you eloquent.

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark

And find the uncreated light:

This ruck and reel which you remark

Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,

Desire not to be rinsed with wine:

The can must be so sweet, the crust

So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Nostrils, our careless breath that spend

Upon the stir and keep of pride,

What relish shall the censers send

Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet

That want the yield of plushy sward,

But you shall walk the golden street

And you unhouse and house the Lord.

And, Poverty, be thou the bride

And now the marriage feast begun,

And lily-coloured clothes provide

Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

Originally written in 1866, a fragment from “The Habit of Perfection” was first published in Robert Seymour Bridges’s anthology The Spirit of Man: An Anthology in English & French from the Philosophers & Poets (Longmans Green & Co., 1916). In “Food Metaphors in Gerard Manley Hopkins,” published in Victorian Poetry, vol. 55, no. 3 (Fall 2017), Mariaconcetta Costantini, professor of English at D’Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara, Italy, writes, “Another struggle against the lure of the senses, including taste, is dramatized in ‘The Habit of Perfection.’ Like other lyrics of Hopkins’s university years, this poem in quatrains exalts the human capacity for renouncing physical pleasures in favor of spiritual ones [. . .]. [T]he poet turns the body and its perceptive organs into vehicles for achieving a condition of bliss that entails the final rejection of corporeality. Such a strategy is evident at the beginning of each quatrain, which opens with a direct reference to man’s sensual powers of perception / communication: hearing, speaking, seeing, tasting, smelling and touching. Stanza four, in particular, focuses on the pleasures of the palate—‘the hutch of tasty lust’—which are visibly evoked before the invitation to transcend them. Despite the use of negation, the speaker gives flesh to the palate’s ‘desire . . . to be rinsed with wine,’ while the other references to drinks and aliments (‘The can . . . so sweet, the crust / So fresh’) attach physical valences to the ‘fasts divine.’”

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest during the nineteenth century. Known for his innovations in prosody, most notably his “sprung rhythm,” the vast majority of his work was published posthumously. He died on June 8, 1889.

By Then

By then I was leaving,

and the deer in the meadow had stopped 

paying me their mind. I was alone

as I’d always been

but twice as deep for knowing it

now. Sometimes it’s OK

you have to wander a strange house

covered only by a blanket,

itchy wool rubbing against your naked ass

and shoulders—

the coarse gray fire station blanket

given me as a child. I didn’t know

whether this was one of those

times; I mean, 

I didn’t know if I was “OK.”

Shame thinks of us

in friendly terms—it sees how we are,

on the blink—it wants only

to do us the kindness

of anchoring us to the world it makes us

feel unworthy of.

I kept thinking a good cry

will take care of everything

wrong—getting 

day by day

skinnier but filled

somehow despite it all

to bursting.

Do me a favor,

I wanted to ask shame,

hold me, why don’t you?

Because at heart

it’s just that simple 

maybe. I wanted to be

held, that’s all. When I say

the word “world”

I mean love of course.

When I say “then”

I mean now. Always.

-- David Rivard

From SOME OF YOU WILL KNOW © 2022 David Rivard published by Arrowsmith Press.

Grounded

The stories all forget that the Buddha

was just a man sitting beneath a tree

in the middle of the night, weathering

the storm of his thoughts and fears, 

each one demanding: Who do you think 

you are? His simple answer: to reach 

down and touch the earth, feel the wet 

hair of the grasses, the smooth skin

of sandy soil beneath his hand. And so 

I say to myself: Ground yourself here. 

Pick up a single dead oak leaf, if that’s 

all you can do, and turn it this way 

and that, so the leathery surface gleams 

in thin winter light, so that the earth,

which you are, can welcome you back.

—James Crews

The Medicine of Surrender

comes with no spoonful of sugar.

No promises, no back up plans,

no returns, no insurance.

The medicine of surrender

never tastes the way you expect,

never tastes the same next time,

seldom has the hoped for effect.

And if there were some part of you

that thought it might not be affected,

that thought it might hold back,

that part is most likely the first part

to be flooded with the relentless

truth of what is. Oh surrender.

The surest medicine that exists.

There are infinite side effects.

Wonder. Freedom. Rawness.

It’s like opening the dictionary

to the word heaven. Or obliteration.

And knowing it’s the same thing.

It’s like playing spin the bottle with life,

and you French kiss whatever you get.

It’s the only remedy that can help you

be whole. The only real medicine there is.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Blessing of Breathing

That the first breath

will come without fear.

That the second breath

will come without pain.

The third breath:

that it will come without despair.

And the fourth,

without anxiety.

That the fifth breath

will come with no bitterness.

That the sixth breath

will come for joy.

Breath seven:

that it will come for love.

May the eighth breath

come for freedom.

And the ninth,

for delight.

When the tenth breath comes,

may it be for us

to breathe together,

and the next,

and the next,

until our breathing

is as one,

until our breathing

is no more.

—Jan Richardson

from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

 "My son has gotten to be fourteen with no encouragement from me. I believe the perfect age for any son is a certain week in his eleventh year when he balances briefly at the triangular intersection of self-sufficiency, unconditional love, and eagerness to please." 

--Wild Life, by Molly Gloss.

The more I love my life, the more I understand the meaning of it

On Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, 

raindrops are much bigger 

than they are on earth, and fall 

so slowly you could look up, 

spot one coming, and move

out of the way. 

Imagine seeing that for the first time– 

rain inching down from the sky, 

how wide your eyes would be 

as you followed each dreaming drop 

to the ground, how you’d be 

absolutely hypnotized. 

That’s how I feel looking at this world 

of ours now, knowing our time here

is never promised—I heal 

the disease of being accustomed 

to beauty. I see the miracle 

of the Aspen tree with its golden leaves 

like a thousand yellow lights 

begging me to slow down. 

I laugh each time someone calls me 

an “an old soul.” I am not an old soul. 

Please life, let the astonishment

on my face make it clear that this

is my first time here, marveling

at the steam rising from a cup 

of lavender tea, the patch of sun 

that traveled 90 million miles 

to warm the hardwood floor 

where my oldest puppy dreams, 

my window thrown open 

to my neighbor’s violin, 

every goosebump on my skin, 

a coin in god’s tip jar.

--Andrea Gibson

The Only Prayer

Because there was nothing else to do,

and the news frightened me as usual,

I took a walk on my favorite trail

in the woods, and because the snow

began to melt as soon as it fell,

everything was wet—the lichen a bright

lime-green on the bark of each fallen tree,

the leaves beneath my feet deliciously

soft as they squelched and sank back

into the arms of the earth that shaped them. 

I picked up one of the limp, gold-

toned beech leaves, pressed it to my chest 

then left my despair on a mossy trunk,

like placing a lit candle on an altar

and saying the only prayer that matters:

I'm here, I’m here, I’m here.

—James Crews

Skiing into the Storm

I love the days when it feels right

not to turn from the storm

but to move deeper in,

when the body doesn’t shy

from the cold and wind,

when the smile arrives

as the storm magnifies

and a whoop rises from the lungs

like a fierce and hardy bird.

What is it in us that feels more alive

in these moments? 

Is it the part that rhymes

with instability,

the untamable part

that knows chaos, too,

is holy? And the gusts

swirl and the chill bites

and the smile

incredibly widens.

-- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Rural Delivery

I never thought we’d end up

Living this far north, love.

Cold blue heaven over our heads,

Quarter moon like chalk on a slate.

This week it’s the art of subtraction

And further erasure that we study.

O the many blanks to ponder

Before the night overtakes us once more

On this lonely stretch of road

Unplowed since this morning;

Mittens raised against the sudden

Blinding gust of wind and snow,

But the mailbox empty. I had to stick

My bare hand all the way in

To make sure this is where we live.

The wonder of it! We retraced our steps

Homeward lit by the same fuel

As the snow glinting in the gloom

Of the early nightfall.

-- Charles Simic

From Selected Poems: 1963-1983.

I Try to Describe the Baby Things

We discover physics like we write poetry – 

marveling at a mystery we already know 

but need the language to explain.

There are so many days I struggle

with words— with focus.

My mind holds awe

like a wasp in a butterfly net.

I fall back on cliches.

I say I feel blessed to be his mother,

even though his hand is on my cheek.

Carried for nine months,

held while crying, while both crying,

and now a choice, a hand, he is trying to tell me—

a new feeling, like a spring robin in the pine trees.

Our capacity for love is always growing 

and so I wonder if that is why the universe expands –

it is filling with the awe we feel for it.

--Leslie J. Anderson

The Lifeline

Here is what I know: when 

that bell tolls again, I 

need to go and make something,

anything: a poem, a pie, a terrible

scarf with my terrible knitting, I 

need to write a letter, remind myself

of any little lifeline around me.

When death sounds, I forget most

of what I learnt before. I go below. 

I compare my echoes with other people’s 

happiness. I carve that hole in my own 

chest again, pull out all my organs once

again, wonder if they’ll ever work again

stuff them back again. Begin. Again.

-- Pádraig Ó Tuama

A Few Words On The Soul

We have a soul at times.

No one’s got it non-stop,

for keeps.

Day after day,

year after year

may pass without it.

Sometimes

it will settle for awhile

only in childhood’s fears and raptures.

Sometimes only in astonishment

that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand

in uphill tasks,

like moving furniture,

or lifting luggage,

or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out

whenever meat needs chopping

or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations

it participates in one,

if even that,

since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,

it slips off-duty.

It’s picky:

it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,

our hustling for a dubious advantage

and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow

aren’t two different feelings for it.

It attends us

only when the two are joined.

We can count on it

when we’re sure of nothing

and curious about everything.

Among the material objects

it favors clocks with pendulums

and mirrors, which keep on working

even when no one is looking.

It won’t say where it comes from

or when it’s taking off again,

though it’s clearly expecting such questions.

We need it

but apparently

it needs us

for some reason too.

-- Wislawa Szymborska

 The crucial work of social peace (negotiating peace, organizing peace, facilitating peace, instituting peace) only maintains a superficial and tenuous harmony if there is no on-the-ground commitment to interior peace, the kind that changes lives from the inside out. Countless civil disobedience movements have demonstrated the power of non-violent action when it is steeped in spiritual intention and grounded in a peace that no oppressor can give or take away.

Br. Keith Nelson

Window

Hope makes itself every day

springs up from the tiniest places

No one gives it to us

we just notice it

quiet in the small moment

The 2-year-old 

"kissing the window" he said

because someone he loved

was out there

--Naomi Shihab Nye

How to Survive

Even the will will return again.

Even the love, the wonder.

Darken. The heart

can love this.

And the new moon changing in the maples.

And the grief like black oars in the rafters.

And the branches that have let go

of everything, saying

wait, just stay

in your changes;

you have hated

your one life 

long enough.

Try something wondrous.

Trust it.

--Joseph Fasano

My love

if we just put down our maps for a bit

and walk straight into the 

backcountry of our hearts

We will both be amazed by

what wonders 

we wander into.

--john roedel

Urgent Message to a Friend in Pain

I have to tell you

a little thing about living

(I know, I know, but hear me),

a little thing I've carried

in the dark:

Remember when you saw the stars of childhood,

when you knelt alone and thought

that they were there for you,

lamps that something held

to prove your beauty?

They are they are they are they

are they are.

--Joseph Fasano

 Make the ordinary come alive. The extraordinary will take care of itself

--William Martin

On the Train to Hospice Care

If every earthly body earns its trip into the dark,

then I would like to be there with you

when you turn your face away from the light

and say what you will say to the darkness--

perhaps prepared, perhaps words you never thought 

you would say--and I would like to be the one

leaning down and whispering into your ear,

into the last scrap of you that can hear me,

words you never heard in this life, from yourself or 

from the wind or from another, I would like to say

you are doing fine, you are doing this perfectly.

--Joseph Fasano

Questions for the New Year

Why not believe in magic?

Can I soften? Can I soften some more?

Does truth exist? How are stones alive?

What if I never learn

what happens when we die?

What's the next nice thing 

I can do for someone else?

What's for breakfast? What's at stake?

When I dream of my beloveds, is it them?

Where am I in my own way?

How might I be more river, less dam?

Which comes first, forgiveness or the peace?

Which comes last, unknowing or the known?

What is love? What is now? What is home?

What is it in us that knows how to wonder?

What is it in us that knows how to grow?

Who are we really? What is courage?

What's worth it? What's asked of me now?

Should I be in this moment a blade or a bloom?

What's the nature of higher ground?

Can I ask without longing for answers?

Can I feel I am one with it all?

How does life live through me?

Can I be in service to that?

What do I believe I can't give away?

What if I say nothing and listen?

Will I choose awe today?

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer