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talking to strangers
"At a ball game, you almost always see something you’ve never seen before. In today’s America, honestly, God only knows what we might see next."
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poetry: works like a charm
March 21, World Poetry Day, UNESCO recognizes again the point of poetry, celebrating it as one of our most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity. The theme this year is drawn from a line of poetry by Charles Baudelaire – “Always be a poet, even in prose” – a call to observe and appreciate the power of poetry in difficult times. In words, coloured with images, struck with the right meter, the power of poetry has no match. As an intimate form of expression that opens doors to others, poetry enriches the dialogue that catalyses all human progress, and is more necessary than ever in turbulent times.…
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an irish mother’s day dance
Old Smoothing Iron by Seamus Heaney Often I watched her lift it from where its compact wedge rode the back of the stove like a tug at achor. To test its heat by ear she spat in its iron face or held it up next her cheek to divine the stored danger. Soft thumps on the ironing board. Her dimpled angled elbow and intent stoop as she aimed the smoothing iron like a plane into linen like the resentment of women To work, her dumb lunge says, is to move a certain mass through a certain distance, is to pull your weight and feel exact and equal to it. Feel…
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a homing bird
But now that I have spent more than half my life in the desert southwest, there are still unguarded moments of dislocation that bring a crushing loneliness and a visceral longing for “home,” for brightly painted front doors and blue space; for a slow pace in a rainy place where strangers say hello to each other; where church bells peal and roosters crow; where there are unplanned sessions in pubs that stay open late if you sing another song for them; and, where there's always a bus to the city. I will know it when I find it. I will be home.
