Category: Poetry

  • Fire-Flowers by Emily Pauline Johnson

    Fire-FlowersAnd only where the forest fires have sped,    Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands, A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,  And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,   It hides the scars with almost human hands. And only to the heart that knows of grief,  Of desolating fire, of human pain, There comes some purifying sweet belief,  Some fellow-feeling beautiful, if brief.   And life…

  • Hurry by Marie Howe

    We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery storeand the gas station and the green market andHurry up honey, I say, hurry hurry,as she runs along two or three steps behind meher blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?To mine? Where one day…

  • A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William E. Stafford

    I love William Stafford‘s poetry. I came across him when we were still living in the Pacific Northwest where he is from. The first poem of his I heard from Parker Palmer when I participated in a renewal retreat with him years ago. It’s a poem I have used in countless writings and presentations: The…

  • A Spiritual Journey by Wendell Berry

    A Spiritual Journey And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,  no matter how long,  but only by a spiritual journey,  a journey of one inch,  very arduous and humbling and joyful,  by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,  and learn to be at home. ~ Wendell Berry ~

  • Does the heart have a narrow door? by Carol Bialock

    Eric Muhr from Barclay Press shared this poem around earlier this week from a new book of poetry Barclay Press recently published from Carol Bialock, which is really good: Does the heart have a narrow door? Will it allow in just one more of every beast and flower and bird and every song it has…