'poetry' Category
too bad Chanukah is very late this year
Because I’m feeling the need for those small lights in the darkness that send a message two thousand years old: “You did your worst, but we’re still here.” Diwali has come and gone – any light it left behind has dimmed, lost in the shadow of later events – darkness, division, disenchantment and encroaching despair. […]
the time before fear – and a very modern annoyance
The notes app I’ve been using for years, since I got my first iPhone, Fliq Notes does not seem to be playing well with iOS 10 – and as far as I can tell, they’re not supporting it for iPhones any more at all. I can open notes, but I can’t edit or even copy […]
never assume you know it all
Sparked by a discussion on Ravelry’s “This is What a Feminist Knits Like” Forum: Baba Yaga Meets the Mansplainer So, you know all of the stories about me; Tales of my long nose and my skinny knees and my house that walks on chicken feet. You are told that I cannot hurt the pure of […]
Chanukah poem – peace in contradiction
I think this year’s Chanukah poem came out a little more bellicose than I was intending, so may need some explanation. I don’t actually mind may of the ways that Chanukah has grown due to being close to Christmas, because I *like* giving gifts, and I think people of any religion need a solstice-type holiday […]
The Unmistakeable Scent of Approaching Autumn
Leaves about to fall; snow still a thousand miles off but coming closer
These are not good poems, I don’t think
THe first one suffers from lack of water time. It’s a response to Millay’s “My heart, Being Hungry”, and its startings came to me while I was out rowing. But I haven’t been in a boat for a while (and I won’t be, until after the Holiday Challenge at least) and so finishing it was […]
an unexpected poem happened by
This comes from a bunch of things. Elizabeth Goudge sent me to Rupert Brooke (and wow – I’d never seen that sonnet before. What a wallop it has!) which of course made me think of the end of his life, which got me curious enough to look up his American contemporary (born just 3 years […]
the first light in the darkness
Somehow it feels like the days are getting short earlier this year. That is actually true: sunset tonight is six minutes earlier here than it is in Eindhoven, where I was at this time last year. (This surprises me – Eindhoven is six degrees further north, and I’d have thought we were close enough to […]
I’m not sure if this one is done
This year’s iteration of my annual light-in-darkness poem seems to be a tiny one: In the darkest part of the year, we set out, our keel pointed into midnight, trusting the stars and our own hand on the tiller to guide us into sunlit seas. Earlier years’ versions: I seem to have missed 2011, but […]
Sally Kristen Ride (1951 – 2012)
Gravity no longer holds her down and what she’s learning now, she will not reach back to teach us – not as we sit here, anyway. Who knows what learnings lie ahead once we’ve followed her path? But let it not be soon: we have still too much to learn here in lessons already given; […]