As happens on pilgrimage, life reveals things both beautiful, AND burdensome. Pilgrimage affords one opportunities to feel both energized and enervated. Mark Nepo, in his usual provocative poetry, seizes on this notion, in “Adrift.” And, as I pedal across southern Michigan with this poem in my back pocket, I am feeling and experiencing it all, pedaling with the …
To Mom My mother, Helen, died over two weeks ago. And, by the time this entry posts, it will be my birthday, my first birthday without her. I began sitting with Ross Gay’s poetry a few days ago, and as my cycling season begins–a little late this year–I will begin it with this poem in …
Brightly gleaming ice falls liningthe cliffs on this morning’s ride.Glistening, fresh, freezing wind whipping.I am alive. I am alive. I am alive! Invigorated and absorbed,Seven doesn’t skip a stroke,we move mightily and meticulouslyas the road continues to slope. Upward we ramble,twisting tenaciously through the trees,hearing ice crack, frozen bubbles bang,as the forest frostily breathes. I …
“Enough” “These few words are enough, if not these words, this breath…If not this breath, this sittingthis opening to the life we have refusedagain and again until now. Until now. In this moment of epiphanythis opening to the life we have refusedagain and againuntil NOW.” by David Whyte
For my love. We thought the earthremembered us, shetook us back so tenderly, arrangingher dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds. We sleptas never before, stoneson the riverbed, nothingbetween us and the white fire of the starsbut our thoughts, and they floatedlight as moths among the branchesof the perfect trees. All nightWe heard the …