I've just packed up my house in Central Victoria after 22 years of living amongst kangaroos. I let go of so much stuff but I've tried to hold on to a sense of being home, even without those walls around me.
I so appreciate your writing, and how it reaches into our hearts and stories. Thank you.
I recently wrote a poem for my 88 year old father who has dementia. I am his carer. Dad is tired and would like to leave his body sooner rather than later. I share here the first four lines of the poem and it is the line 'the long sleep from which there is no morning/mourning... that touches me deeply. It has been present in my thoughts this last week as he is in respite as I travel away from home.
I read the whole poem to dad before I left. He wiped his eyes and I asked if he'd like me to read it again. Yes please, he said.
There is a power in sensing that for him there is no mourning in his leaving. It is his time—all in good time.
A Blessing for David
Peace be to my father, hungry for life
To be redeemed. Spare him his ailments
As he sits in his recliner chair wanting the night
To come—the long sleep from which there is no morning.
Photo flashes of the emaciated boy in Gaza with cerebral palsy.
The hunger for hostage families to hug again. The hunger to break bread with our "enemies". To repair and refuel a future for our own and the other. The hunger not to be the other.
A word I seem to aspire to is the word “kind.” Can I/we demonstrate simple kindness to one another rather than seeing if someone is of my/our kind. I recall learning that the root of the word kind is “kin”; yes, all together we makeup humankind.
“submit” - after a private spell of ten or more years, in the space of a week I sent in two writing submissions, and so the word “submit” lingers for me. How it can shift in the light and shadows, feel scary or brave, and how time alters around it - years went by and then suddenly a few days felt like the right time to share those words, but still no idea if or when they will land anywhere.
The word has legal meanings as a government program that provides benefits to people who are eligible for them, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, or a right to benefits by law.
But there are also definitions that have to do with beliefs, “belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges” (Merriam-Webster online dictionary) or feelings as in “a sense of entitlement.”
There is misunderstanding when people think of the beliefs/feelings sense of “entitlement” when it is being used in the legal sense. And that can add to negative feelings about programs established for people with low incomes.
The word "ujamaa" is a Swahili (?) word meaning "community engagement," "cooperation," & is the name of our school's (I'm a teacher) multicultural heritage festival which just happened for a second time. It was wonderful to see the diversity of national dress among our student population, to celebrate various dance & food way tradition - to see the embodiment of those principles throughout the school community as we celebrated in community - "coming into oneness."
Pádraig, I followed your link to the Round Top Poetry Festival in Texas and discovered this poem waiting for me there. "Fresh" became my new favorite word!
But this week I’ve been looking anew at the word “service,” including what it means to “be of service” and perform “acts of service.”
The inciting incident wasn’t a pleasant one. A subscriber to my newsletter left the comment: “Apparently the principle of service is lost upon you Dana Leigh Lyons.” He then explained that he was compelled to share his assessment (both there and publicly, on Notes) upon seeing that I offer premium content to paying subscribers. Because I’m in addiction recovery and write about recovery, he takes issue with me charging for subscriptions. (AA meetings, in contrast, are free.)
I’m not an AA meeting. I’m not a sponsor. I don’t even belong to AA though I have great respect for that path of recovery - it’s just not my own. I’m a writer and Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and work with addiction in both contexts. So, is my work “service”? And is there a place to be of service while still receiving payment. I think so.
Paint. Painting (the verb or the noun, but primarily the verb).
We have been in the process of painting our kitchen cabinets (and if my kids don’t stop touching the walls, everything as well), but with work and three kids it just goes on and on. When did instability and flux become the norm, the chaotic homeostasis? Maybe having kids was the tipping point and I’ve just been existing in a place of permanent impermanence?
All that to say, “paint” has been on my mind, my hands, my clothes. Not a revelatory word, but one that I literally have been encountering for months and that encounters me as well.
Words in my head this week: Agency, attrition, atonement - all reflect different forms of power and influence in my mind and all could find themselves working in, or out of ,or after a challenge towards another possibility. I work to improve healthcare and working lives so its a politically charged space that I certainly did not realise when I first came to work in a hospital some 20 years ago...
I am a recent newcomber to Poetry Unbound and I love PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA's book and commentary - I think of poetry as a key, as a breath, a prayer and that friend we love that loves us so much we accept the challenge to be better.
“Im-prove-ise” or improvise. This is how I meet music. Music as a way to improve life on this Earth. Out of “nothing” comes So much. Out of silence such Beauty arises and returns to Silence. Very little waste. A daily challenge is creating a lifestyle informed by this process, this journey of im-prov.
The words?
Let Go. Hold on.
I've just packed up my house in Central Victoria after 22 years of living amongst kangaroos. I let go of so much stuff but I've tried to hold on to a sense of being home, even without those walls around me.
Curious feelings.
BIG words.
Thanks so much for what you do.
Tricia
I so appreciate your writing, and how it reaches into our hearts and stories. Thank you.
I recently wrote a poem for my 88 year old father who has dementia. I am his carer. Dad is tired and would like to leave his body sooner rather than later. I share here the first four lines of the poem and it is the line 'the long sleep from which there is no morning/mourning... that touches me deeply. It has been present in my thoughts this last week as he is in respite as I travel away from home.
I read the whole poem to dad before I left. He wiped his eyes and I asked if he'd like me to read it again. Yes please, he said.
There is a power in sensing that for him there is no mourning in his leaving. It is his time—all in good time.
A Blessing for David
Peace be to my father, hungry for life
To be redeemed. Spare him his ailments
As he sits in his recliner chair wanting the night
To come—the long sleep from which there is no morning.
The whole poem can be read here: https://wendyhaynes.com/a-blessing-for-david/
Padraig, I hope you are well grounded and back in your present moment!
‘Mother’
As a verb it means kindness, care, protection. Add an ‘s’ to the front and it all changes.
As a noun, it carries so much: a title, a role, a biological function.
For this word, context is important.
For you it is safety - for me wariness
For you it is nurture - for me it is awe
For you it is home - for me it is loneliness
For you it is unconditional - for me it is, well, complicated
Hunger. Hungers
Photo flashes of the emaciated boy in Gaza with cerebral palsy.
The hunger for hostage families to hug again. The hunger to break bread with our "enemies". To repair and refuel a future for our own and the other. The hunger not to be the other.
A word I seem to aspire to is the word “kind.” Can I/we demonstrate simple kindness to one another rather than seeing if someone is of my/our kind. I recall learning that the root of the word kind is “kin”; yes, all together we makeup humankind.
“submit” - after a private spell of ten or more years, in the space of a week I sent in two writing submissions, and so the word “submit” lingers for me. How it can shift in the light and shadows, feel scary or brave, and how time alters around it - years went by and then suddenly a few days felt like the right time to share those words, but still no idea if or when they will land anywhere.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
As a child I used to wonder "why shall I not want the shepherd?"
It took me ages to learn to read it in the way it was intended!
“To hear, one must be silent.”
This is a lovely little line from the book A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin.
It’s a reminder to myself not to be speaking all the time. Instead, I can quiet myself once in a while and listen to the voices all around me. ☺️
“Entitlement.”
The word has legal meanings as a government program that provides benefits to people who are eligible for them, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, or a right to benefits by law.
But there are also definitions that have to do with beliefs, “belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges” (Merriam-Webster online dictionary) or feelings as in “a sense of entitlement.”
There is misunderstanding when people think of the beliefs/feelings sense of “entitlement” when it is being used in the legal sense. And that can add to negative feelings about programs established for people with low incomes.
The word "ujamaa" is a Swahili (?) word meaning "community engagement," "cooperation," & is the name of our school's (I'm a teacher) multicultural heritage festival which just happened for a second time. It was wonderful to see the diversity of national dress among our student population, to celebrate various dance & food way tradition - to see the embodiment of those principles throughout the school community as we celebrated in community - "coming into oneness."
Pádraig, I followed your link to the Round Top Poetry Festival in Texas and discovered this poem waiting for me there. "Fresh" became my new favorite word!
Fresh
by Naomi Shihab Nye
To move
cleanly.
Needing to be
nowhere else.
Wanting nothing
from any store.
To lift something
you already had
and set it down
in a new place.
Awakened eye
seeing freshly.
What does that do to
the old blood moving through
its channels?
Cleave is one of my favourites.
But this week I’ve been looking anew at the word “service,” including what it means to “be of service” and perform “acts of service.”
The inciting incident wasn’t a pleasant one. A subscriber to my newsletter left the comment: “Apparently the principle of service is lost upon you Dana Leigh Lyons.” He then explained that he was compelled to share his assessment (both there and publicly, on Notes) upon seeing that I offer premium content to paying subscribers. Because I’m in addiction recovery and write about recovery, he takes issue with me charging for subscriptions. (AA meetings, in contrast, are free.)
I’m not an AA meeting. I’m not a sponsor. I don’t even belong to AA though I have great respect for that path of recovery - it’s just not my own. I’m a writer and Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and work with addiction in both contexts. So, is my work “service”? And is there a place to be of service while still receiving payment. I think so.
Paint. Painting (the verb or the noun, but primarily the verb).
We have been in the process of painting our kitchen cabinets (and if my kids don’t stop touching the walls, everything as well), but with work and three kids it just goes on and on. When did instability and flux become the norm, the chaotic homeostasis? Maybe having kids was the tipping point and I’ve just been existing in a place of permanent impermanence?
All that to say, “paint” has been on my mind, my hands, my clothes. Not a revelatory word, but one that I literally have been encountering for months and that encounters me as well.
Words in my head this week: Agency, attrition, atonement - all reflect different forms of power and influence in my mind and all could find themselves working in, or out of ,or after a challenge towards another possibility. I work to improve healthcare and working lives so its a politically charged space that I certainly did not realise when I first came to work in a hospital some 20 years ago...
I am a recent newcomber to Poetry Unbound and I love PÁDRAIG Ó TUAMA's book and commentary - I think of poetry as a key, as a breath, a prayer and that friend we love that loves us so much we accept the challenge to be better.
This morning early I was thinking of the word day ,
and how nothing in the shortness of this three letter word gives even the faintest clue as to the vastness of the field of possibilities
within which a day plays out .
“Im-prove-ise” or improvise. This is how I meet music. Music as a way to improve life on this Earth. Out of “nothing” comes So much. Out of silence such Beauty arises and returns to Silence. Very little waste. A daily challenge is creating a lifestyle informed by this process, this journey of im-prov.