Tag: inspiration

Thinking About Faith

Sarah Russell12 Comments

My poem is up at the wonderful Poetry Breakfast this morning. My thanks to editor Kay Kestner.

Thinking about Faith

I’m not talking religion here, 
although it’s nice to have that too. 
I’m thinking of the sun-rising-every-day 

kind of faith we take for granted—
that cars coming at me will stay 
in their lanes, that planes 

will land. It’s deeper than expectation—
that the dinner party will go well, 
or the Amazon delivery will arrive 

on Tuesday. It’s more akin 
to assurance—that when my friend 
says she understands, she does. 

Faith is more solid than Emily’s hope, 
more bedrock, but it’s beautiful 
like her feathery allusion—

that you’ll come home every evening,
that we will share our day, 
that you will hold my hand.

The Swan

“. . .an armful of white blossoms…”

Sarah Russell2 Comments

On this Earth Day, a day of marching to support science and the environment, I thought of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver and the legacy of nature she is leaving for us.  Here is one of my favorites with Mary’s gentle call to action.  There are many sites to learn more about Mary Oliver’s body of work.  You can start here.

 

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

– Mary Oliver
  First published in The Paris Review