Category: Reflections and Poems

Pelvis with the Distance

An ekphras­tic poem is a poem about anoth­er piece of art, often visu­al art — in this case a paint­ing by Geor­gia O’Ke­effe called “Pelvis with the Dis­tance.” I saw the paint­ing last week­end at the Taco­ma Art Muse­um here in Wash­ing­ton State, part of a col­lec­tion called, “Elo­quent Objects” about O’Ke­ef­fe’s still life paint­ings… Con­tin­ue read­ing Pelvis with the Distance

How We Learned Our Language

We gath­ered around the stony hill and watched it as the sea­sons turned, and years went by with heat and cold, rain-lashed, sleet-lashed, snow; and then, wan light return­ing we con­sid­ered it all and some began to call it patience. There were places we gath­ered, there and there upon that hill, near the flow­ing pines who whis­pered among them­selves… Con­tin­ue read­ing How We Learned Our Language

This is What I Notice

This is what I notice: a song I have nev­er heard from a bird at dusk by a riv­er I don’t remem­ber. Bird, dusk, song, riv­er. Then just riv­er, the choir of stones keeps the qui­et going wait­ing for the bird. You and I at dusk are also insep­a­ra­ble. You lean down to touch the face of the fern  beau­ti­ful as your own lean… Con­tin­ue read­ing This is What I Notice

On Interconnection…And Yet

We know, at bot­tom, that every­thing is con­nect­ed.  It’s like the joke about the monk who orders a hot dog: “Make me one with every­thing.” We’re already there. We get that.  And yet. Indeed. In fact. And yet. We treat our­selves as indi­vid­u­als. We oper­ate in a com­pet­i­tive, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly entre­pre­neur­ial world of “best ideas,” “best knowl­edge,” “best… Con­tin­ue read­ing On Interconnection…And Yet