The water lily proves nothing —
has nothing to prove.
It floats, it rests, it drinks deep,
it grows, and beauty spills out in every petal.
I wrote this poem during my last silent retreat, at Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House, this past August. But it seems particularly appropriate for meeting the newest member of my family, my new niece, who is two months old today.
Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House, 17 August 2019
Thursday of Holy Week
You were alone in the garden,
Lord. Will you stay with me
in mine?
Written during my last silent retreat, at Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House, this past August.
Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House, 17 August 2019
Wednesday of Holy Week
Jesus grabs the soap
and water, laughs
as suds slosh onto
the floor.
“I didn’t know
you liked cleaning,”
I say, warily.
He just grins. “Why else
did you think I had come?”
Written during my last silent retreat, at Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House, this past August.
Two years ago, during my last spring teaching high school English in Nairobi, Kenya, I had the privilege of having two of my former students — both talented word-smiths — lead a workshop on poetry and the art of spoken word for my 10th grade global literature class. It was quite possibly my favorite class of the semester.
As I’ve written elsewhere, I’m not, by nature, much of a poet, and it took teaching Sappho to a freshman English class (more than a decade ago now) to first convince me that there might be something in poetry after all — something of magic in the rhythm of line breaks, the details of punctuation, and the meaning built of nouns, brevity, and space.
In the decade since, my appreciation of poetry has grown most significantly through engagement with my students: students who taught me, every year, something new about meaning and beauty and the words that relay them.
I like to think that sometimes that learning was mutual, but I know that these particular students — who returned to teach my class as seniors — were already far beyond me when they arrived in my classroom as sophomores. Poetry, even then, seemed their truest language — and they’ve continued to hone their passion and skill in the intervening years. (Case in point: one of them’s publishing a book.)
I’m not sure, as a teacher, there’s anything that brings one’s heart more joy than watching students (former or current) do what they love, and do it well. I took copious notes during their back-to-back presentations, inspired by their articulate insight into the art of performance and the joy of word-craft.
What follows are simply a few images I hastily scrawled at the time, inspired by their prompts and shared here in honor of National Poetry Month — and all the students who’ve inspired me with their courage, their passion, and their words. I love and miss you all.
A Poetry Workshop in H115
12 March 2018 — for Kofi and Karen
The days crawl by like dying storms.
Caught in the rain, I dream of sun.
Yet all around me the soil,
dark, pungent, rich,
sends out tendrils of new green.
New buds, unafraid of stormy skies,
grow bright and brave in tear-drenched
earth. Who knew that sorrow
could bring forth such life?
—
Laughter bubbling up like water
from a mountain spring —
clear and bright — the source
of life.
—
I’m sorry but I am only flesh
and bone, human and dust,
imperfect, fallible,
yet bearing fingerprints
of the Divine.
April is National Poetry Month, and poet or not, I’ve discovered that I have a surprising amount of poetry fragments languishing in my drafts folder. So, yes, I’m using this excuse to bring some of them into the light . . .
In Search of Waking 