The Sunday Poem
The Sunday Poem: “More” by James Crews
Living in cities and moving from place to place for most of my adult life, I had fallen out of the habit of gardening. Like many, I’d lost touch with the food I found for sale in grocery stores and even at farmer’s markets, forgetting the pleasure (and intense hard work) of being part of the growing process from beginning to end.
The Sunday Poem: “I’d rather be influenced” by Patrick Ramsay
Directed at the so-called “influencers” and advertisers online who vie for our attention, this poem rejects such marketing manipulation. Instead, Patrick Ramsay says he would rather be influenced to “send more postcards./To kiss with more tongue . . . and make cold brew at home.”
The Sunday Poem: “Each Self” by Andrea Potos
Leave it to a mother, while looking out at the sunset with her daughter, to observe how we hold all the selves we’ve ever been inside us like “nesting dolls,” one fitting easily within the next.
The Sunday Poem: “The Honeybee” by Jacqueline Jules
Life presents us with so many moments when we can choose to react or not, turn one way, or go in another direction. Do we choose peace, or move into reactivity?
The Sunday Poem: “In the Fourth of July Parade” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Even in the midst of a ravaging sorrow, joy can arise in us seemingly out of nowhere. And as Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer illustrates so well in this week’s poem, our task then becomes not rejecting the joy, accepting that “key,” we often receive from someone else.
The Sunday Poem: Northern California by Rage Hezekiah
It can be useful, of course, for us to hold onto instants of joy and connection when they happen in the moment. We can pause, truly take them in, and allow them to stay, instead of turning away from those bursts of deeper happiness. Yet it’s also possible, as Rage Hezekiah illustrates so beautifully in her poem, to look back at certain times in our lives and relive the “guiltless” pleasure that we felt then.