Friday Find: Ballast & Balm

Need ballast, balm, and a bit of burrow?

When the world presses and the mood plummets, I turn to books. Here are some of my latest favorites:

FICTION

Leaving by Roxana Robinson
A beautifully nuanced and thoughtful novel on marriage and the price of compromise and loyalty. This is my favorite book of 2025 (so far).

Show Don’t Tell: Stories by Curtis Sittenfeld
A refreshing collection of short — but dense and satisfying — stories about everyday middle-age women leading smart, witty, wondering, wandering, complicated, ordinary lives.

Bel Canto: The Annotated Version by Ann Patchett
I didn't love this novel when it debuted in 2001, but this annotated version has deepened my appreciation of the book and its author. With chatty handwritten notes in the margins, Patchett returns more than 20 years later to review and revise her bestselling book and offers readers a master class on the art of precision and revision.

POETRY

The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal
This jewel of a book is packed with my favorite poets: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Alberto Ríos, January Gill O’Neil, Danusha Laméris, Naomi Shihab Nye, and dozens more. I consider this my daily dose of creative inspiration, aspiration, and awe.  

An Important Note: On some of these photos, you'll notice a library barcode. I'm a frequent user and fervent lover of libraries. We need these safe, free, and powerful spaces and places. Please support your local library — by borrowing, visiting, and giving (time, money, heart).

Need convincing? On this topic, Bitches Get Riches is articulate and urgent:

“Our libraries have been under attack for years now. Book bans and outright censorship are one thing, but extremists are also attempting to restrict library access for marginalized people; fire highly trained and educated librarians and replace them with untrained ideologues; privatize libraries to turn them into for-profit businesses; and close some libraries altogether, effectively killing community access to all the great services I talked about above.

And with the killdozer that is Project 2025 rampaging through our federal government, things are likely only going to get worse. We know from history that the people trying to ban books and censor diverse viewpoints are never the good guys. So I will just call these most recent attacks on our library system exactly what they are: an attack on democracy itself.

Fortunately, the best way to defend your library is also the easiest:

Use the fucking library.

State and local governments apportion money to public services according to their use. So if lots of people are using the library, it’s pretty clear that it gets a lot of use and therefore needs a lot of funding.

Bring your friends! Sing your library’s praises! Explore all that your local library has to offer and spread the word.

You can also show up for your library when it is attacked. Attend town meetings and local government functions to express your support of the library. Protest any censorship or threats to your library’s funding. If someone in your community is coming for your library, let them know their book bans are gonna catch these hands!

It can feel useless and demoralizing to protest the giant, churning cog of the federal government in These Trying Times.™ It’s a lot easier—not to mention more effective—to use your voice to affect change on the small, local level. Your library and your community need you. Don’t be silent.”

To this I add: Yes! Read, Write, Rally!

* * *

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Float, Balance, Breathe

Float, Balance, Breathe

1.

Lean on your lungs.

Tuck your chin and swim downhill.

Instructions run through my head:

Float, balance, breathe.

Gasp, reach, pull.

Float, balance, breathe.

One lap. Another. Slow but steady.

Arms thread water, slipping in, pulling back.

My body quiet.

Turn head, open mouth, inhale, inhale, inhale.

I slow everything down because breathing

is the challenge. In water, on land.

But isn’t that the burden for us all?

One more lap. One more day.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

2.

On the walk home, hair wet, a storm kicks in.

Dark sky. Wind swirls. A few drops turns

to gushing rain in a frenzy of bent limbs.

Everything is clinging to something,

a grasp for something solid. What happens

in the space between gusts, in the gasp

for breath and refuge?

3.

We've been told to hold close

to love, to beauty, to every small thing

because this will sustain us through difficult days.

I do not ignore the burning world but I am fearful

as the flames of my indignation grow.

How futile I feel.

4.

As I reach home

I see the dying honeysuckle vine

has sprouted four green leaves in

these first tender days of spring.

It may survive.

My appreciation for this thatch of brittle sticks

is stretched. As so much ugly takes hold

how will this small hope grow?

— Drew Myron

It’s National Poetry Month and life is a poem.
What are you writing, reading, painting, making?
Please share with me: dcm@drewmyron.com

Thankful Thursday: Broken

On this Thankful Thursday, I sing the praises of poems carried and shared. It’s the sort of secret language I need right now. One that gazes and sighs, then turns to another and says, you too?

As the world roars, I am happy for things quiet and small, like a poem, like a pocket.

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day!

Here's how it works:

 1.  Pick a poem. 

 2.  Carry it with you. 

 3.  Share it.

The result? The world hums with the beauty of poems. 

That’s it. That’s everything.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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April Blooms: Poems, Pockets, Picnics

The Story of Water, by Tracy Weil.

'Cause we're living in a world of fools
Breaking us down when they all should let us be.

— How Deep Is Your Love

The Bee Gees were right. Forget April Fools’ Days, and turn instead to what really matters:

Today signals the start of National Poetry Month.

Launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month is now the nation’s largest literary celebration with scores of readers, writers, schools, libraries and bookshops hosting special events and activities to mark the value of poetry in our lives.

Celebrations take place across the map — in major cities and small towns — with readings, walks, talks, picnics, parties, and more. My favorite way to mark the month is Poem In Your Pocket Day. This year it falls on April 10 (get those poems ready!)

How are you celebrating?

In Hood River, Oregon (where I live), the local library and city parks department have partnered to create a Poetry Walk. The project combines 14 nature poems accompanied by the work of local photographers placed along Indian Creek Trail, a popular path within the city. The effort is headed by a committee of writers with connections to the Columbia River Gorge, including Alejandro Jimenez and Leah Stenson.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the annual Poets’ Picnic is a free outdoor event celebrating art, poetry and nature with live readings and music performances.

Visitors are invited to walk the grounds while viewing poems written on brown paper tags tied to trees and shrubs, called Weathergrams (in a playful adaptation of the Asian custom). The haikus are written by New Mexico poets and rendered by local calligraphers. The work is also featured in handsewn chapbooks created by area artists. Proceeds of sales benefit the Open Space Alliance. The community event is led by local poet-artists Dale Harris and Scott Wiggerman.

What’s happening where you live?

Across the country this month, writers will gather in groups with heads bent and voices wobbly as they find safety in the sharing.

Someone pens a poem. Another reads a line that lifts off the page and into the mind. Ideas grow. Feelings swell. Action arrives.

Maybe you’ll write a letter, or share your favorite poem — with a neighbor, a stranger, a friend. In the reading, the writing, the giving and receiving, a thread goes taut, and from the tug, our hearts stretch and strengthen.

In this month of celebration, how will you take part?

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About the Image:

The Story of Water — isn’t that a great writing prompt!?

The image at the top of this page is a painting by Tracy Weil. He’s a dear friend whom I fondly consider the poet of painters. His latest collection of work is Unabashed, a solo exhibition at the Arvada Center in Colorado, opening April 11.

Discover more here.

Wide Asleep

Trying Our Best by Drew Myron

Trying Our Best

 
Last night
an ache so real I stirred awake.

There are so many ways to live
and I try them on, one by one
in deep sleep resurrecting
sorrows long gone.

My mother calls and I can
almost touch her face, now soft,
her smile, now easy. She is yielding
and I am arms stretched to find
the emptiness of expectation.

The trick, she says slipping away, is to keep moving.

Most everything is waiting or prayer
so I stand silent, pebble small
smaller, gone.

On another night
I stand cedar tall and solid.
Leaf and branch wear certainty.
Every root a permanence.

Fake it 'til you make it, she calls out.

Some nights I am sea,
the steady pull and roll of turn and tumble,
a rush forward and a push away.

I’ve never been a seagull, though my mother urges me to try.
They fly because they think they can, she says,
her words lifted from a dusty
poster hanging in our 1970s home.

At night in dreams that feel wide awake
my mother waits for me, eager to share
platitudes we both hope will hold.

— Drew Myron

Trying Our Best — collage materials from Surface Design, a journal of the Surface Design Association, 2000; and Akris ad appearing in The New York Times Magazine, 2025.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

What are you making? I’d love to hear from you!

Thankful Thursday: One Good Line

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Whether puny or profound, attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

Some days I need a great deal to dig out of life’s debris — a vacation, say, or a windfall of some sort. Other days it takes very little to shift the mind and lift the heart.

I’ve taken to collecting small moments: a warm glove, a soft shirt, a beat of sunlight across the floor. This week, a novel calmed and this line called:

She had a feeling that they were

talking in different languages —

each only half-learned by the other.

— from Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont

This 1971 novel was written by Elizabeth Taylor (not that Elizabeth but this Elizabeth). In 2005, the book was made into a movie, starring Joan Plowright and Rupert Friend. I saw the movie years ago, and just recently read the book. Both, I’m pleased to report, are warm and loving.

And really, lately, and maybe always, warm and loving is all I need.

What are you thankful for today?

* * *

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On Sunday: Stillness

Whale Song

Humpback whales sing the way humans speak
— The New York Times

1.

Today my horoscope gives a warning:

“If there is an ambulance in your relationship . . . ”

Yes, yes, I nod. I hear the siren, feel the clutch

of worry and pitched frequency of fear as

the alarm races toward me.

But when I blink and read again, the emergency is over:

“If there is an imbalance . . . ” it says.

2.

For many days you are sick.

Your head fogs, your throat closes,

and I do the talking, too much, because

worry grips my heart and

triggers a babble.

3.

We know now that marriage

is a language of the mundane

passed through generations:  

            “How was your day?”  

            “What’s for dinner?”

            “Do you wanna watch tv?”

We are efficient — this, that, small words that return and repeat.

We slice our energetic costs, find savings we don’t need.

4.

Sometimes we talk softly, gently

because silence is a bridge and

we want to meet in the middle.

5.

Sometimes we don’t talk because there is too much to say.

6.

Tonight before the song,

in the stillness between us,

we look deeper, listen longer,

find each other in the hum.

— Drew Myron

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Fast Five with Luisa A. Igloria

Photo by Gabriela Igloria

“The language of poetry is what I like to turn to, in order to process the information life / the world throws at me.”

— Luisa A. Igloria

Welcome to Fast Five, an occasional series in which I ask my favorite writers five questions as a way to open the door to know more.

Luisa A. Igloria is the author of 14 books of poetry, four chapbooks, and editor of three anthologies. From 2020 to 2022, she served as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Originally from Baguio City, Philippines, Luisa lives in Norfolk, Virginia, where she is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Old Dominion University.

She has been lauded with numerous awards for her work, including the world’s first major award for eco-poetry, and a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Union of the Philippines.

Despite the many accolades and achievements, it was a quiet corner of the internet where I first found her work. Every day for 14 years, Luisa has written and shared a poem at Via Negativa.  

1.
Why write?

I can’t think of a good reason not to. Perhaps this is because I was raised in a book-reading, book-loving family, and developed an early appreciation for language. I recall my late father telling me that we may not have been wealthy, but he would see to it that I got a good education. Also, I’m more of an introvert, and it just seemed natural that I’d be attracted to things that could be done in solitude (reading, writing, making art, playing music). 

For the last 14 years + 3 months (and running), I’ve kept a daily writing practice (in which I write at least a poem a day). This has taught me a lot about myself as a writer— and I’ve come to realize that the language of poetry is what I like to turn to, in order to process the information life/the world throws at me.

2.
You have a full and prolific professional life. What do you enjoy about writing, teaching, leading?  

I love the way my practice as a poet and as a teacher (of poetry, creative nonfiction, and literature) engages language which has the capacity to immediately and deeply address the human in us. The language of poetry, of art in general, isn’t merely transactional. It allows us to access the beauty as well as vulnerability of human experience, and in so doing, feel connected to ourselves and to others. 

From Via Negativa, where Luisa A. Igloria posts fresh poems daily.

3.
What’s the best — or worst — writing advice you’ve received? 

Perhaps one of the worst kinds of writing advice: Write (only) what you know. 

One of the best kinds of writing advice: It’s ok to write into what you don’t (yet) know. That’s how discovery happens; how else could you get to wonder, except by admitting there are so many mysteries in the world that still have the capacity to floor you?

4.
What book do you return to again and again?

I love Federico García Lorca’s In Search of Duende — for his reminder that creativity is more than technical or mechanical mastery of skills. His theory of the duende taps into the importance of also cultivating a connection to more ineffable, intuitive, perhaps even archetypal energies. In other words, anyone can learn to be a good carpenter of language; but learning to make language sing is a different matter.

Another book that is formative and important to me is Magnificence and Other Stories by the Filipina writer Estrella D. Alfon (1960).

5.
What are you currently working on?

A new manuscript on the creation of a hill station in the northern part of the Philippines (where I am from) by the American colonial government, in the 1900s. History continues to fascinate me, as an archive full of narratives that could take on a different sheen depending on the point of view of their telling. Also, from this perspective, the past is not necessarily “over.”

Bonus Question: I'm a word collector, and keeping a running list of favorites? What are yours? 

Some favorites:

pine       cypress        mountain       archipelago        

From Caulbearer: Poems  by Luisa A. Igloria

Thankful Thursday: Want

Of Want, visual poem by Drew Myron

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

For years I've believed wholly, deeply, not-quite-religiously in the power of positive thinking. What you focus on becomes. What you resist, persists. I really do believe that gratitude is a powerful way to pivot from despair to repair to release to rejoice.

Sounds corny, I know.

But the weekly pause for gratitude helps to counter my small self and petty complaints, along with all the big world aches that crush the spirit. Lately, however, the big and small overwhelm my ability to “find the good.”

In the weary season, I am reminded of Sarah Cord’s description of gratitude:

“To be grateful is to live a full life. It is to know worry and accept worry. It is to shore up the foundations even in the face of the weathering forces of tragedies and time.”

For years, I’ve met you here on a weekly basis and often encouraged you to join me in Thankful Thursday. Just as love is a verb, thankfulness works best when it moves in action and awareness. In giving thanks, either privately or publicly, in solitude or community, the point is not to count your riches / blessings / advantages but to exercise the muscle that strengthens appreciation.

Gratitude is a practice, just as paying attention is a practice. The more you see, the deeper you look, and, in turn, the more you see.

When I feel waves of want — the crushing desire for more time, money, skill, ability, or a better world — practicing gratitude offers a valuable perspective shift. You train your eyes, and your heart, to “see the good.” And soon the exercise feels less a chore and more a pleasure. In this shift, want is the window that lets gratitude in.

What are you thankful for today?

 * * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Love & Other Verbs

Tender, an erasure poem by Drew Myron

O Tender Love

I want

a song

with a

tether of

sound

that

carries

all that

fails us

with a string

that gives

flight

and

lifts us

to the quiet

field of

wonder

we forgot

we had

lost

— Drew Myron

Three words, scratched, can make a poem.

On this day, will you please join me in large & small appreciations:

make something, say something, love something.

xox

Got a Good Line?

Magazines, books, signposts, poems — among the avalanche of words I’m always looking for one good line. A strong passage, an unexpected turn, a moment that lifts and holds. That’s the sign of a good time.

This week, I’ve been lucky to catch a few:

His words make a little corkscrew of sorrow twist inside you.

— by Dwight Garner in the The New York Times Book Review on Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard [ Joe Brainard is author of the seminal stream-of-consciousness poetic memoir, I Remember, published in 1970 ]

At last she entered with a whoosh, as if a gust of wind had opened the door and she’d been blown through in its wake. She had hair the color of scotch, bright green eyes, and freckles that looked like tiny wet leaves stuck to the bridge of her nose.

— from The Tender Bar, a memoir by J.R. Moehringer

I don’t know what to do with old photographs anymore.

— from Congratulating Your Photograph On Your Move to London, a poem by Kami Enzie, appearing in Poet Lore, Volume 118. [ This poem excerpt served as a great writing prompt for me this week. Really, what do we do with old photographs? ]

We trawl the dopamine deserts of the same social media apps, looking for loud noises and bright colors to punctuate the malaise. We have near-unlimited access to information and somehow fail to be curious about any of it.

— from Grow Up, an essay by Helen Holmes, published in The New York Times Magazine

Your turn: Have you read (or written) a good line lately? Please share with me.

Stay curious & keep on.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Scratch & Swirl

Careless, an erasure poem by Drew Myron

It’s been a week.

What can we do — cling and wait, fret and furrow?

Knowledge may be power, and ignorance bliss, but silence is not golden. Indignation spends energy but does not make change. What do we do in the middle ground, in the mid-day, in the rumble of chaos?

I scratch and swirl. It’s not much. It’s something. It’s nothing. It’s this.

What are you doing?

Two for Tuesday

Hello Readers, Writers, Friends:

The days move quickly. Life feels full as everything swells, brims, bubbles, spills.

Or maybe it’s just me?

In the pause, I find small gems. On this Two for Tuesday, I offer you:

1.
Jackals & Fireflies — a short film written by poet Eva H.D. and directed by filmmaker Charlie Kaufman. This 20-minute film delivers a haunting and hypnotic blend of writing, image, music and mood. (YouTube)

Kaufman is the writer/director behind some of this era’s more trippy and thought-provoking films (and many of my favorites): I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Eva H.D. is a writer I first found through Bonedog, a poem that was featured in Kaufman’s film, I’m Thinking of Ending Things. The piece was so movingI raced to learn more about the poem and the poet. (I raved about her here). She has several books, frequently collaborates with Kaufman, and describes Jackals & Fireflies as a “book disguised as a film.”

2.
His Three Daughters - Just when I think I’m done with grief, a powerful film comes along to gut punch me to catharsis.

This 2024 drama follows three sisters as they deal with the death of their father. With taut performances by Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olsen, this film is close and tight and so very real. If you’ve been near someone at the end of life, in this movie you’ll likely see yourself (and cringe), your siblings (and groan), and all the broken complicated feelings of love and loss.

Do you know this movie? It’s quiet and tense and I stumbled on it by mistake (or by a Netflix algorithm). I don’t usually watch first-run films, so maybe this one is a big hit and I’ve been in the dark? Either way, it’s my latest favorite film. (Netflix)

How about you? What are you reading, seeing, watching, feeling? I always enjoy hearing from you. Send light — write!

Dear You

Bless You, a visual poem by Drew Myron.

Dear You (and you and you) —

Now the rain has wore me down, and I'm slipping into sweets and drink and other gluttonies.

To lift the spirits, I turn to poems and find a good one that urges readers to make art from everyday experience, and I raise my hand in praise, yes, this. 

I told myself I would write a poem in response to that poem, but here I am, sitting in half-light, watching darkness gather and cold collect and I am not writing a poem. I am writing to you, which is much the same but without profound pause and studied punctuation.

Who knows, really, how this all works?

Some days the hush is deep and you swan through worries. But more often, the chaos swirls and you search for branch, dock, pen, paper, a landing.

You are writing in the dark. A phrase arrives that is not your own, that you do not understand, that you can never know until the words stir and settle and say everything you cannot.

I am writing to self, to sky, to the way gray sucks up light and leaves us cold and lonely, without victory or vices. I am waving, dimly, a shrug of a gesture really, across a distance in which only you can see.

With love,

Drew

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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Gnaw & Thrall

Gnaw & Thrall, a visual poem by Drew Myron

Gnaw & Thrall

Of all the things

the body absorbs:

sun, salt, water,

heat, freeze, and

endless sinking

it still insists on

staying open, suspended

at the surface of parched

and starving, deep in

the gnawing thrall

of living.

— Drew Myron

* * *

The world turns on words.

What are you reading, writing, making?

Best Books of 2024

Happy New Year! Join me in welcoming a bounty of books to read, re-read, savor & share!

Is there a better gift than a book?

Sure — wine, sweets, and thrift store gems will always make me swoon, but give me a book and you’ve worked your way into my heart. This season, I’m feeling a swell of gratitude for good friends & good books.

Let’s look back to the best of the bunch (umm, books, not friends).

I don’t track the number of books read, though I typically complete at least one to two books a week. Of those, here are the ones that have stuck with me (these are books read, not necessarily published, in 2024):

FICTION

Novels I keep urging everyone to read:

• Long Bright River by Liz Moore

• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

• Commitment by Mona Simpson

• The Wedding People by Alison Espach

A good but disturbing novel that I couldn’t put down:

• History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund. This family drama thrums with creepy yet fascinating tension.

Novels that left me entertained but conflicted:

Months after reading these novels, I can't stop thinking about the topics they raise: writing, race, access, appropriation.

• Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

• Victim by Andrew Boryga

Mystery series I gobbled up:

• Vera Stanhope novels by Ann Cleeves. Until recently, I was not a big fan of crime thrillers. But lately, I can’t get enough of the genre. In a series that spans nearly a dozen books, Cleeves is an expert at unwinding story and character with masterful restraint.

NON-FICTION

Most unexpected transformation of a punk rocker:

• Faith, Hope, and Carnage by Nick Cave

Delightful tales with a side of sad:

• Still Life with Remorse by Maira Kalman. An artist/writer turns family grief inside-out with quirky irreverence that soothes and surprises.

• A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. In this slim book containing three stories about his childhood, Capote offers brilliant writing that reveals the tender oddity of an unusual friendship.

POETRY

Poet whose books I can’t stop buying:  Jane Mead
Though she died in 2019, I only recently discovered the work of poet Jane Mead. At every turn I find another book I didn’t know I needed.

Poet whose work I wish to inhabit: Mary Ruefle
A Little White Shadow, a small thin book published in 2006, kicked off a world of erasure poems. Yes, there were others before her (and a great many since) but Ruefle really amped the form.

Poetry books I keep close and return to often:

Given by Wendell Berry

The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang

Hush by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

The Way It Is by William Stafford

Words Under The Words by Naomi Shihab Nye

QUESTIONS:

• Where do you get your books?

I am committed to supporting the work of writers by buying their books — but I read a lot and gotta pay my electric bill too. To that end, I obtain books in a variety of ways, namely at independent bookstores (Powell’s City of Books, Klindt’s Booksellers, and Bart’s Books are my favorites); at used bookstores (Artifacts: Good Books & Bad Art and Thrift Books are my top picks); and for poetry I purchase directly from the publisher because these are often small presses without the resources to get product placement at mainstream outlets.

And, firstly and lastly and always, I borrow books from my local library — where anyone can read books for absolutely free! Isn’t that a wonder?!  

• What’s your best book of 2024?

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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The Work of Christmas

Hello Dear Reader,

Tinsel glistens, carols ring, and gifts sit wrapped and ready. Now, the busy of Christmas comes to its crescendo, followed by the quiet dim of a holiday glow.

In this rush and release, I turn again to one of my favorite poems of the season: The Work of Christmas by Howard Thurman. *

Written in 1948, this poem remains as powerful and relevant as when it was penned 76 years ago.

Howard Thurman was a professor, pastor, and civil rights leader. Born in 1899, he founded the first major interracial, interdenominational church in the United States, was the first black dean at a mostly white American university, and served as mentor to scores of students, including Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yet, Howard Thurman remains widely unknown. The activist was not boastful or loud. He believed real change was internal, individual, and often quiet.

“There must be always remaining in every life,” he wrote, “some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathless and beautiful.”

Colleagues and scholars have long praised Thurman’s work and heart.

“He gently and powerfully moved through the world in a spirit of grace, dignity, and humility,” says Walter Fluker, a professor at Boston University, where Thurman served as dean.

With grace, dignity and humility — the spirit of Christmas shines on.

With warm wishes to you in this season of darkness & light.

— Drew

* My other favorite seasonal poem is: When Giving Is All We Have, by Alberto Ríos.

* * *

The world turns on words. Thank you for reading & writing.

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-

Thankful Thursday: Finding Song

Photo by Pedro Alonso, courtesy of Creative Commons.

I'm not a poet but I’m trying to understand awe.

— Cecilia Fischer, The Ocean Foundation

Long before dawn, the roosters call. A repetitive caw that rattles and gnaws, then becomes, like so many things — bird chatter, dog barks, thumping bass, an engine’s roar — a background to life.

Sometimes you grasp for any small thing, a tether to something stronger, bigger, better than the self.

When a young woman talks to you plainly, as if reciting the soundtrack of your inner life, you lean in close to catch every word: 

Keep a sharp focus on the contents of your mind, she says. The words you hear, think, and speak will support or thwart you.  

In a clattering cafe, far from the thrum of holiday cheer, you hear the distant threads of a familiar song. Silent Night calls you closer. You reach across a table, ask another, Do you hear it, too?

Or, in the dim light of evening chatter, above the twinkle of a crumbling courtyard wall, you hear The Drummer Boy. The rump-a-pum-pum is faint but you crawl along the soft slow beat.  

In the morning, church bells ring with You Are My Sunshine, and a chord pulls within you. You understand now that this is the most reverent song you have ever heard.

Inside, you step lightly toward the steady hiss of candles burning. This, too, is song. Heart to throat to eyes, a gentle welling reminds you: every day holds the holy.

* * *

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.

What are you thankful for today?

 * * *

small things

the world is full of glass

unpack slowly

shake petals

serve tea

give wide starts

live among psalms

pull thin light

stand tall

give thanks

— Drew Myron

Question on a Tuesday

GOODNESS

Rain reinvents the world.
Flowers draw strength from sun.
Prayer is just wish shifted.

Imagine a kind tenderness like wild
roses singing across a lonely field.
Who we are unfolds through experience.

You change beyond what you can ever dream.

— Drew Myron

QUESTION:

What is unfolding, and how have you changed?

I’d love to hear from you. Send light, write!

* * *

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Escuchar

We drive just 35 kilometers to another time, another place, another world within us.

San Javier is a town of just 150 people, though we see only a few along the stone streets, standing in the shade of lime trees, in the doorways of homes and small cafes with tables and chairs beneath thatch roofs.

It is the church we have come to see. Maybe it is the oldest, the tallest, the most beautiful, the most something of somethings that I can't recall. The details rarely matter.

At the entry, a man with a soft voice and gentle smile ushers us in. The church was built in 1699, he says. We are alone here, nodding in awe and repeating his words in whispers.

I am not looking for god. But time holds reverence and attention is the currency of care.

He shows us all the places god would live:  the diminutive wood closet for confession, the baptism basin made of smooth marble remarkably unblemished after hundreds of years. The oil paintings above the altar, dark with time, with repetitive prayers. He pauses at each square of art, points one-by-one to say the name. I do not know these saints, these ways of adoration, but I nod along, feign a following I wish to feel.

I am not looking for god — or I am, by default, always searching for something. It’s more that I am seeing beauty in the details:  thick walls that cool our weariness, the solace of hushed words, the way the man mixes both Spanish and English and when I comment on his skills — how did you learn English, I ask — his smile is soft as he points to his ear, “escuchar,” he says.

After three months of Spanish lessons, this is one of the handful of words I know (and love):  escuchar, to listen.

Even saying the word produces a lovely soft sound: ehs - koo - chahr
Hear the beauty of the word, here.

This church, this gentle man with four generations planted in this remote desert place, shows us every small thing we need to know.

Later in the day, after hours of oven heat, the world feels loud and full, bustling and busy. I head to the sea. I long to cool off but mostly I wish to slip into a long pull of plunging quiet.

The next day I wake early to an orange sky that turns the morning pink. The roosters have already begun their announcements, followed by dogs, by birds, by cars, by the crackles of day. The day barges and enlarges, and I listen for the hush.

Escuchar, escuchar, escuchar.