Yeah, yeah, I know. Mother’s Day in the US isn’t until next week. But when I began this poem, I didn’t know it was going to be about mothers. Or about tree rings. That’s the beauty of…
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It’s night-time in Baltimore, Maryland, a city with its fair share of troubles—high poverty rate, high unemployment rate, high crime rate . . . But if you scan the city skyline, what you see there…
As the dream opens, I’m in Grand Central Station in New York City. (In dream-speak, call it a grand place at the center of things. Maybe even the heart itself.) The station is bustling with…
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…
This week, in trying to grapple with the enormity of the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria, I turned to writing poetry. The staggering numbers of the dead, wounded, and homeless (many of whom were…
Tyre Nichols was, in his own words, an “aspiring photographer.” His favorite subject was landscapes. He also loved shooting videos while skateboarding. As one of his friends said, he used his camera “to capture the…
Good morning, Pat!* Thank you for your email, seeking to hire me as an editor for your poems. By now, you’ve received my reply, where I explained that I don’t provide editorial services, only “creative companioning.”…
Geoff stands on our snow-covered side stoop, bundled against the single-digit cold. Grinning through his frosty white beard, he delivers me a gift on behalf of his wife, Sue: a big, warm pair of mittens,…
In my dream, I’m visiting a dear friend whom I don’t often get to see. Each hour of our time together is precious.
As our reunion is nearing its unwelcome end, we hear a soft knock on the door. Answering, we find Katie, an itty-bitty angel, not even five feet tall. In waking life, I know her as a woman in her late eighties, a mother of twelve, a longtime hospital chaplain, a lover of the arts. Her short-term memory has turned into a sieve, too holey to hold much of anything anymore. But her heart remains a huge earthen bowl, capable of holding the world.
A friend shows me a beautiful potted mum. Its rich orange-red buds have burst open with vibrant sprays of sun-yellow at their center. The plant—of a variety called “Autumn Sunset”—is simply gorgeous. “The garden center…
On September 4, Jihong and I delivered Nathan to college for his sophomore year. An hour after we unloaded his stuff at the dorm, Nathan auditioned on his cello for a seat in the symphonic orchestra, a premier touring group comprised of highly skilled student-musicians, most of them majoring in music.
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