Today’s prompt at The Writer’s Digest poetry blog is to write a directions poem. I love working with the cardinal directions and their correspondences with the four sacred elements. Still, when I read this prompt, I decided it was for directions for the sacred grove.
Take the road up the hill through the golden wood
and make a dogleg turn at the crest of the the ridge
to wander down again on the other side.
There will be thirteen horses in the field
behind you and three placid steers to your left.
Down a sudden steepness, another solitary horse
will look up from his ruminations before you pass
the lily pond, whose queen is a koi fish
the tangerine shade of sun as it sets over the ridge.
Make a left after the gingerbread treehouse,
after the white house set into the hillside.
Leave your car and walk up the hill behind the red barn
through the high grass. There will be pear trees
on your left, and a white-throated sparrow
will sing in the sycamore behind you.
A pathway will lead you up the hillside
where you will turn to your right up a grassy lane
between pear trees, and you will smell the musk
of the fox who protects the grove which you seek.
Pause a moment before you enter the circle
and listen to the distant call of the phoebe,
wait until the shadow of the vulture crosses the sun,
then step into the shelter of the grove
and let the silence surround you.
Gratitude List:
1. The trusting nature of cats
2. Looking forward to breakfast tomorrow with colleagues
3. The red tree behind the school takes my breath away
4. All of us hanging out in the living room together–somebody is snoring behind the couch
5. Watching students catch fire with the love of reading. I have a student who has been very honest about the fact that she doesn’t like to read, that she has never read a non-graphic-novel on her own. She has been so obsessed with our class reader, The Maze Runner, that today after we finished it, she asked if she could start the second book in the series instead of writing. She read with focus and energy for half an hour straight. I’m so proud of her.
May we walk in Beauty!
“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” —Carl Sagan
“But this moment, you’re alive. So you can just dial up the magic of that at any time.” —Joanna Macy
“I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” —Vincent van Gogh
“The most vital right is the right to love and be loved.” —Emma Goldman
“Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal.” —Sark
“Everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything exists, only because I love.” —Leo Tolstoy
“Love is a great beautifier.” —Louisa May Alcott
“Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.” —Erica Jong
“Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don’t stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies.” —Frederic and Mary Ann Brussa
“I will start from here. That is an interesting spiritual statement when you stop to think about it. It means that whatever happened before, and whatever may happen in time to come, the past and the future are not the sacred space I actually inhabit. That space is right here, right now, in whatever condition I find myself. This is what I have to work with. This is where change and hope begin for me. Recognizing my location on the map of the holy is one more way that I claim my place of blessing and announce to the universe: I will start from here.” —Steven Charleston
” ‘They kept going, because they were holding onto something.’
‘What are we holding onto, Sam?’
‘There’s still good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.’ “
—Frodo and Sam
“Somewhere deep in the forest of grief
there is a waterfall where all your tears may flow
over mossy rocks, under watchful pines.”
—Beth Weaver-Kreider
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” —E. B. White
“There are certain things, often very little things, like the little peanut, the little piece of clay, the little flower that cause you to look WITHIN – and then it is that you see the soul of things.”
—George Washington Carver
Mockingbird Chronicles 