“Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.” ~ excerpt from the poem “Dreams” by Langston Hughes On December 25, 1925, a century ago, Langston Hughes was working as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel dining room in Washington D.C. At twenty-three years old, the young …Read More
Category: Poem
The Place I Want to Get Back To ~ Mary Oliver
The Place I Want to Get Back To~ by Mary Oliver The place I want to get back to is where in the pinewoods in the moments between the darkness and first light two deer came walking down the hill and when they saw me they said to each other, okay, this one is okay, …Read More
For One Who Is Exhausted ~ John O’Donohue
For One Who Is Exhausted~ by John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,Time takes on the strain until it breaks;Then all the unattended stress falls inOn the mind like an endless, increasing weight. The light in the mind becomes dim.Things you could …Read More
After My Mother Died ~ Joel Ying
The year after my mother diedWas filled with angerSleepless nightsGetting upAnd walking through my dayWhere the best and worst thingThat I could do was forgetEven for a momentThe second year after my mother diedWas filled with angerAnd joyThinking ofThe way that she would laugh beforeHer own punchlinesCross her legs and say“I have to pee!”And laugh …Read More
We Wear the Mask ~ Paul Lawrence Dunbar
We Wear the Mask~ by Paul Lawrence Dunbar We wear the mask that grins and lies,It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—This debt we pay to human guile;With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise,In counting all our tears and sighs?Nay, let them only see …Read More
By the road to the contagious hospital ~ William Carlos Williams
Spring and All [By the road to the contagious hospital] by William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963) I By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen patches of …Read More
For a New Beginning ~ John O’Donohue
“I want to be able to do that” I still remember the moment that I first heard someone perform a story. I was expecting an ordinary speech where I could learn something about public speaking. Instead, I was immediately captivated, pulled into the vivid images that story created in my mind. The storyteller transformed herself …Read More
A Blessing ~ James Wright
Suddenly I realizeThat if I stepped out of my body I would breakInto blossom. ~ James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. A Blessing ~ by James Wright Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian …Read More
One Today ~ Richard Blanco
One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,peeking over the Smokies, greeting the facesof the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truthacross the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a storytold by our silent gestures moving behind windows. ~ first stanza from One Today by Richard …Read More
Poem: Lost in Summer ~ Joel Ying
Lost in Summer ~ by Dr. Joel Ying, MD Atlantic waves crashing on the white sand Mid-morning sun already heavy in the sky Fractured shards of light glimmer atop the waves Sea foam like lace hems the shoreline. My nine year old self running into the water Trampling over the delicate froth Leaving the already …Read More