Sunday, November 30, 2014

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

Saturday, November 29, 2014

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

Friday, November 28, 2014

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