STRIVING FOR 

PEACE OF MIND

Poem for Today - Sunday November 20, 2014

IN THE DEPTHS OF SOLITUDE

pondering my true goal
trying 2 find peace of mind
and still preserve my soul
constantly yearning 2 be accepted
and from all receive respect
never comprising but sometimes risky
and that is my only regret
a young heart with an old soul
how can there be peace
how can i be in the depths of solitude
when there r 2 inside of me
this duo within me causes
the perfect oppurtunity
2 learn and live twice as fast
as those who accept simplicity 

© Tupac Shakkur

A SENSE OF WONDER

Poem for Today - Saturday - November 29, 2014

GRANDFATHER

Grandfather took us out

Long after dark

And set his telescope up on the lawn

And showed us how to look through the lens.

We saw the mountains of the moon!

We saw the rings around Saturn!

We saw the stars in the Milky Way –

Too many to count!

“See,” Grandfather said.
“what wonders God has made!”

And then he hugged each of us

And said, “And you are wondrous too!”

© Madeleine L’Engle

THE BREAD 

THAT SATISFIES 

OUR HUNGER 

Poem for Friday -  November 28, 2014

PLENTY

Having shared our bread,

we know that we are

no longer hungry. It is enough

that you see me for myself.
That I see you for yourself.

That we bless what we see

And do not borrow, do not use

one another. This is now we know

we are no longer hungry … that

The world is full of terror, full of beauty

and yet we are not afraid to find solace here

To be bread for each other. To love.

© Gunilla Norris

THANKSGIVING

Poem for Thursday - Thanksgiving Day - November 27, 2014

FAMILY

Not enough hours in the day, we often say
we watch as the business of life allows time slip away.

Before we know days turn to months and months into years,
Time is mapped with laughter and cheers,
the long road sometimes landmarked with sadness and tears.

Elders pass and children grow,
has it been that long we ask, where does the time go?

Not every chance to gather is taken.
"We'll see them next time" we say and hope we're not mistaken.

A chance like now comes once in a lifetime it seems,
when the bright light of family is nurtured and beams,
there will be laughter and time to reminisce
we will all be proud this is a chance we did not miss.

© Ryan Guerrero

Written for the

Guerrero Miramontes

family reunion

July 4-5, 2008

in Scottsbluff,

Nebraska

Painting on top:
Carmen Lomas Garza
Tamalada
(Making Tamales)
Collection of Leonila Ramiriz,
Don Ramons Restaurant,
San Francisco,
California\in
Imaging the Word,
page 175

FAMILY  BIBLE

Poem for Wednesday November 26, 2014

A GRANDMOTHER'S FAITH

They went together—those

wrinkled hands and tattered

book. And something in the

awe with which she held it

 made me think she held

a sacred fire.

The old brass-bound Bible

came to her from her mother,

and hers before that, too,

through more generations than

I know how to reckon - faded,

cracked, worn with use.

I wonder how it felt to hold

the past within her hands -

how many broken hearts found

comfort there, how many searching

minds were fed, how many fears

were calmed in its reading-, what

songs of joy were hummed over it;

what secret tears still stain its pages?

I loved to hear her talk to God,

and when she prayed, I sometimes

imagined I felt God near. It was a

very safe place to be - with God and her.

I liked her God, so wrapped up in the

small goings-on of daily life—not too

far away and busy with eternal

things to take notice of one

small child.

The Bible became mine today, and

my smooth hands look somehow out

of place - and somehow right at home.

Like her, I hold the accumulated joys

and sorrows of my heritage and join

my life with theirs. There is a

strength to it - forged by faithful

living in the presence of a loving

God. The line still holds - all those

who have gone before, myself, and those

who are to come.

© Marie Livingston Roy

HALFBORN WOMAN

Poem for Tuesday - November 25, 2014

BLIND WOMAN

Now I must write for myself     for this blind

woman scratching the pavement        with her wand of thought

this slippered crone     inching on icy streets

reaching into wire trashbaskets  pulling out

what was thrown away     and infinitely precious

I look a my hands and see     they are still unfinished

I look at the the vine and see the leafbud

inching towards life

I look at my face in the glass     and see

a halfborn woman

© Adrienne Rich, 1975,

Excerpt from “Upper Broadway”

THE WOMAN

IN THE WHEELCHAIR

Poem for Monday November 24, 2014

FIELD OF VISION

I remember this woman who sat for years
in a wheelchair, looking straight ahead
Out the window at sycamore trees unleafing
and leafing at the far end of the lane.

Straight out past the TV in the corner,

The stunted, agitated hawthorne bush,

The same small calves with their backs to wind and rain,

The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.

She was steadfast as the big window itself.

Her brow as clear as the chrome bits of the chair.

She never lamented once and she never

Carried a spare ounce of emotional weight.

Face to face with her was an education

Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate –

One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones

Between two whitewashed pillars, where you could see

Deeper into the country than you expected

And discovered that the field behind the hedge

Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing

Focused and drawn in by what barred the way.

© Seamus Heaney