It is so easy to get caught up in all the chasing. There are the goals and dreams and aspirations. We pursue a vision, or our aim, or any other number of respectable things. To swing, as the poet said, “the earth a trinket at my wrist”. But after the…
Are there virtues that we forget? Personally or as a culture? Ones that simply fade like the faces on ancient Roman coins? For Aurelius, Clementia – mildness, gentleness, mercy – was one of the noble virtues. A nine-year-old girl travels all night by train with one suitcase and an orange.…
In his poem “Born Yesterday”, Phillip Larkin looks at a new born baby and wishes, not that she is beautiful or smart or talented, but that she is ordinary. There is great value in our just being. There is something essential about remaining attentive to those around us, whatever the…
The costumes have all been put away and the trick-or-treaters are gone leaving only a few feathers or streaks of glitter on the walkway next to the sagging pumpkin with its memories of smiles. All we have is candy. Candy collected by our own children, or the leftover treats reserved for…
What good are words? Can there ever be a poetry that saves nations or people? Abraham Joshua Heschel pointed out that “the Holocaust did not begin with the building of crematoria, with tanks and guns. It began with uttering evil words, with defamation, with language and propaganda. Words create worlds.”
. . . and when everything feels like it is too much, when the full density of world is slipping loose from tired fingers and there is just so much that you do not know, let yourself breathe, breathe into the realization that: I do not understand; I do not…