Poems and prose that strengthen the weave
I am deeply moved by authentic creative expression: dance, art, music, poetry, prose. Something true, made by another person, can reach a place nothing else can. Some of these poems and prose pieces found their way into my hands at the right moment: they said what I couldn’t, or put words to a threshold I was crossing. Others moved me for what they speak to, or I thought they might be useful to the people I work with. I keep them close the way you’d keep an afghan on the back of the couch: to pull around your shoulders when the cold gets in. Each is credited to its author.
Grief, Death and Loss
For the days when loss keeps no schedule. These poems sit with the ones who are gone and with the ones who are left.
- A Friend of Mine Died Today, L.A. Yarbrough
- Grief Is Praise, © 2015 Martin Prechtel
- Kindness, © 1995 Naomi Shihab Nye
- Stones, Kim K. Smith
- The Lesson, Clara C. Irwin
- The Winter I Buried You, Sharilyn Townsend
- Wake, © Tess Gallagher
Love, Family and Ancestors
Love in its many rooms: the partner, the mother, the younger self, the long line of people standing behind us.
- Ancestry, © Fred LaMotte
- Constellations, Jerome Gentes
- Hallelujah, © Carlos Andrés Gómez
- I Want, Kim Konopka
- Kahlil Gibran on Love, Kahlil Gibran
- Kahlil Gibran on Marriage, Kahlil Gibran
- Love Poem to My Younger Self, © Carlos Andrés Gómez
- Mother Through the Mirror, © 1983 Ann Elizabeth Carlson
- My Stepsister’s Music, © Matthew Deshe Cashion
Spirit, Prayer and the Sacred
Prayers, blessings and doorways. Some come from named traditions and some from a person alone in the woods.
- A Blessing for Beauty, © 2008 John O’Donohue
- Asher Yatzar, © Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
- Back When God Was a Smell, I Was a Dog, © Sophie Strand
- Body of Light and Space, © Tai Sheridan
- Clearing, © Martha Postlethwaite
- Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches, © Mary Oliver
- How Do You Pray?, Margaret Mitchell
- I No Longer Pray, © Chelan Harkin
- Please Call Me by My True Names, © Thich Nhat Hanh
Courage, Healing and Becoming
For the walk between who you were and who you are becoming. These poems mend and they dare.
- A Hero’s Journey, Missy Nicholson
- Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, © 1993 Portia Nelson
- Breathe, Nam Prakash Kaur
- Here’s to the Crazy Ones, © 1997 Apple Inc.
- I Will Not Die an Unlived Life, © 2000 Dawna Markova
- Love After Love, © 1976 Derek Walcott
- Our Deepest Fear, © 1992 Marianne Williamson
- Prescription for the Disillusioned, © Rebecca del Rio
- The Healing Time, © Pesha Gertler
- The Invitation, © 1999 Oriah Mountain Dreamer
- The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost
Eldering, Aging and Letting Go
On growing old with some grace and some grumbling, and on what we let fall so the next season can come.
- Allow, © Danna Faulds
- Anyway, Brooking Gatewood
- I Want to Age Like Sea Glass, © 2014 Bernadette Noll
- The Ups Are Wonderful, Marcelle d’Argy Smith
- What Is Not There, Jacqueline L. Berger
- Wintering, James A. Pearson
Women, Body and Voice
Poems that speak from inside a woman’s body and a woman’s voice, from the dancing to the boxes we climb out of.
- Boxes, © Nikki Giovanni
- Coatlicue’s Legacy, © Ana Castillo
- Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day, © 1978 Nikki Giovanni
- Lexicon, Jacqueline L. Berger
- Local Color, Ellen Yi
- My Tapestry, Brigit Knorr Jan
- Phenomenal Woman, © 1978 Maya Angelou
- Rappin’ on the Men Who Find Their Women on the Rack, Allison Hydorn
- Self Examination, 2001 Farrell Collins
- The Gift, Author unknown
- The Search for the Feminine in My Bones, Jewel Mathieson
- We Have Come to Be Danced, © Jewel Mathieson
Earth, Nature and the World We Share
The land and what lives on it, and the shared planet we are all standing on.
- A Brave and Startling Truth, © 1995 Maya Angelou
- Dulce Et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen
- On the Pulse of Morning, © 1993 Maya Angelou
- What Ties Me to the Earth Is Unseen, © Mark Nepo
- Wild Geese, © 1986 Mary Oliver