Tag Archives: #BlogElul

Prompted poetry: prepare

Posted on September 7, 2016 | 2 comments

You may notice that I posted a poem last year using the same prompt. That’s because it comes from essentially the same source: the seasonal social media event known as #blogElul.

We are not quite the same people when we pass the same date on the calendar each year, and I am thankful for spiritual practices that help me contemplate and celebrate that. (And yes, I am posting this a few days behind. I’m glad you noticed!)

Road improvements

Prepare the royal highway!
Raise up the low and bring down
the high-and-mighty. Soften
curves and widen the shoulders

so no one goes off into a ditch.
Clear boulders and fence posts
from the right-of-way and plant
wildflowers and lithe

grasses to gladden the eye
and sweeten the air. Let the way
be wide, the arms of the Holy One
outstretched to receive us all.

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Prompted poetry: know

Posted on August 22, 2015 | 3 comments

As I typed the title for this poem, my fingers kept keying in “medication” rather than “meditation” (just did it again – three times in a row!) I think that speaks volumes in itself.

Meditation for the day

Be still and know
the Unknowable Source of all Being

Be still and know
all being

Be still and know
the source

Be still and know
the unknowable

Be still and know

Be still

Be

Known

BlogElul5776

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Prompted poetry: accept

Posted on August 21, 2015 | 4 comments

This is harder than it looks – so hard in fact that some days it is beyond our ability, though never beyond our capacity.

Graceful

to accept is to receive, to make a place in our
lives for that which is given, even when
it does not seem like a gift

BlogElul5776

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Prompted poetry: search

Posted on August 19, 2015 | 6 comments

Odd as it seems, this is a long poem for me. The first draft was shorter and much more dense and terse, but I feared it would be too opaque. Now I worry I may have gone too far in the other direction – did I draw this out too much? What do you think?

Precious

When she began looking, she was in high
spirits, cheerful and confident that it had simply been
mislaid. After sifting through clutter on table
and counter, she paused to consider when she had seen
it last and where.

She retraced her steps through several
rooms, spottily, not quite certain
which day was which, their sameness
as sad as it was bewildering. And still she believed
it would turn up.

She moved every piece of furniture, discovering
all manner of things lost but not at the moment
desired. She saw her cleaning had been lacking in certain
areas but did not allow herself to be distracted
by the shame.

Breathing steadily to quell
the panic she felt bubbling along the edges, she turned
all the rugs, shook them clear of dust
and hair and other small bits from shoes
and life.

At length she dropped to her knees
without hope in the center of the smallest
room in the house. A sob tore from her throat
as she glimpsed a metallic glint
beneath a baseboard.

BlogElul5776

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Prompted poetry: act

Posted on August 18, 2015 | 2 comments

Two novels I grabbed at random to read this summer feature works of Shakespeare as a motif. Coincidence? I think not.

Improvisation

There is no script, but the structure remains
obvious: deep darkness sets one act
apart from the next and even though the scene

changes are not always so clearly announced, everyone knows
when the action shifts. The trick to surviving
so much uncertainty is to trust the ensemble, the wit

and timing of the other players. This is also, not
coincidentally, the most difficult part.

BlogElul5776

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Prompted poetry: prepare

Posted on August 17, 2015 | Leave a comment

As one who finds joy and deep meaning in cycles, I delight in the many ways we humans keep track of and celebrate the passage of time. I follow several different calendars and cherish them as interweaving lenses through which to see my life. Some days the view takes my breath away.

Upon leaving my firstborn at college

This is what it was about all along – the hopes
and prayers, the planning and wondering
where you would go and what you might
do. Eighteen years – more than that, really,

when you count the long, slow months in
utero and the decision before that to get off
on the parenting side of the fence and see
what would happen – all those years of work

and I still feel wholly unprepared.

BlogElul5776

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