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Again

Perhaps like you, I’ve been preoccupied this week with the terrible events in Israel-Gaza. Please accept this new poem as a gesture of shared grief and, yes, despite everything, shared hope. Always hope. Like a…

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Legs

In 1982, for a college trimester, I studied and did “service work” in the newly independent nation of Belize. Looking back, I don’t think the Belizeans much desired or needed my “service,” but the experience…

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Names Will Carry

NAMES WILL CARRY Phyllis Cole-Dai                         for Wanda and Tom I carry your names into the mountains you loved, though mountains have no need of names— they know each pilgrim that passes through by scent…

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This Moment

You ever gone through a long stretch where major responsibilities were pulling you in several directions at once? When all you could do was breathe and keep going, trusting that you’d get to the end of it?

Well, I’m happy to say, I’m just about to emerge from such a stretch. Whew.

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What Happens

  This week I plopped down on the piano bench to muse with my fingers on the keyboard about what to write for today’s Staying Power. One song led to another, and eventually I came to “What…

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The Scar’s Appeal

A Rafter asked me to muse on the topic of shame and self-forgiveness. This poem is what emerged. Thank you, anonymous friend, for the prompt! THE SCAR’S APPEAL Phyllis Cole-Dai Look at me: I’m what…

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