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Poetry

Evidence

Barefoot in the dirt outside our tent
in the dark, I bend back my head
and open my heart to the night.

I hope to see heaven unravel
as galaxies take up the thread
then spin, then stretch, as 
vast, practiced hands
join woof with warp 
until smooth folds of time become
measureless yards of
absence and substance—
endless bolts of evidence
unrolling across the sky.

Meanwhile, one by one,
after billion-year trips,
photons land without fanfare 
in my eyes, in my hair,
each quantum a jewel that
graces the dirt where I stand.

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Pandemic poems

A path in Sibley EBRP

I’ve received two beautiful ones in email, and I’m sharing them here. If you know of more, please send them to me. I find them helpful and comforting during this strange time.

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How these things are forgotten

In “The Bowl of Roses” (full text below), the poet Rilke spends eight lines painting an ugly picture. And then:

But now you know how these things are forgotten:
for here before you stands a bowl full of roses…

Thus begin sixty-four exquisite lines of instruction on how these things are forgotten.

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It’s a collection

This site is full of things that interest me and that I’ve created—photos I’ve taken; a few of my short stories and poems; blog posts about this & that; info about spiritual direction and my music. I named the site “Sleep on the Hearth” in reference to one of my favorite poems, D. H. Lawrence’s “Pax”….

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