Fostering a new renaissance through creativity, authenticity, spirituality, and art
Peripheral Gratitude The obvious stuff I’m grateful for too But these often unstated things need to be added to that list: Knives, forks and spoons The wrapper on the bread Hummus and peanut butter Anytime I’m not perfect but still not criticized My mouse’s scrolling button Pretty dishes Ice water A clean carpet, fresh sheets, … Read more
Thanksgiving 2009 I’m thankful for God, infinite, ever-present, all-powerful good who wanted me, made me and actually loves me. I’m thankful for my husband and children, my family and friends and that we are safe, and happy and healthy. I’m thankful for eyes to see with, ears to hear with, fingers to touch with a … Read more
Compassion Not Criticism When you criticize you fail to comprehend that everyone is dealing with more than anyone can know Each is doing his best coping given their uniquely complex aggregate circumstance attempting to manage the petty paradoxes and inevitable dichotomies, and the aggressive onslaughts of mental miasma bamboozled each we are in our own … Read more
Yearning I’m too deep for friendship too raw and ready open and creative and capable difficult to understand while revealing myself at face value as accessible as salt or sugar. I’m too intense, intimidating; I feel too much uninhibited and unafraid, undemanding always screeching on the reins so not to overwhelm incessantly giving and doggedly … Read more
Last year one of the evening activities at Creative Arts Camp was led by Heather Vogel Frederick an author of outstanding books for young adults and a wonderful writing teacher (see here). She gave us only a few minutes to write a poem with the prompt “I am From.” Below is my result from that … Read more
You’d be proud of me, I’m actually cleaning out my office, which has been long overdue, but is finally progressing in the right direction. One of the side benefits is I’m finding all sorts of things. The poem below is one of the things I was delighted to see once more. I vividly remember writing … Read more
My Twelve Year Old Brave Writer She’s hovering, constantly balancing dichotomies: Vigorous movement with deep stillness (literally jumping, with profound perception) Beautiful and serene with persistent agitation (like a magnificent landscape with mosquitoes buzzing) Warm and tenderly vulnerable but with defensively cynical walls up Fiercely glad she’s unique and different meanwhile feeling lonely and peerless … Read more
The house is scrubbed clean For the big graduation All the books are shelved. A tent in the rain to honor my dear daughter with ceremony. Not done this before Uncharted territory Won’t be here again. She’s continuing ongoing life long learning without stop or start. All requirements self imposed and rigorous are unfolding still. … Read more
Reading Walden I remember when my sister had to read Walden by Thoreau; it was intolerable, excruciating, deafeningly exasperating like an incessant blaring alarm that can’t seem to be shut off. It was like walking barefoot over a path of rough rusty nails or being sprayed by a feisty skunk for no reason, the stench … Read more
I Am Orange I am orange bright, bold and in your face caution: you can see me from far off… I’m unreserved and free blasting forward, assertive (but safe from being shot at) I make other colors look better. I’m slurpy as a tangerine while dry as a desert sunset blazing; clear, humble, lyrically compassionate … Read more
Let it Be like Atlas carrying the world taking too much responsibility I need a vacation from introspection pressure huge expectation and crippling hope that shrivels and snivels trying to make it all right with too much effort knowing what it could be with too much intensity and too much tenacity why do only … Read more
Well Fertilized My friend is on the phone: “What’s going on?” “I’m hauling a lot of crap around.” “Oh dear. What’s happened?” “No, really, it’s great. I’m making several trips bringing home free horse manure for my garden.” That’s when she realized that the metaphor applies: all that awful “shit she’s been through” has … Read more
The brilliant red rose against the white viburnum grabs the wandering eye. A cacophony of satisfying thunder it hasn’t rained yet. I am sorting piles – a deleterious heap of fragments bygone. My philosophy: to realize goodness and love one another. The leaf veins branch out a modest infrastructure for collecting food. by Polly Castor
Garbage Removal I’m up praying at four in the morning. Misty, moist, cool air refreshes, wafting in on tendrils from the open window. The only sound I hear is the massive bang and clunk of a garbage truck with hulking mechanical biceps in grinding metal arms, picking up those hugely heavy commercial containers, dumping out … Read more
On Earth Day Often we think of earth’s jaggedly impassable, impressive mountain precipices, or a raging volcano’s seething lava, surging mercilessly down hill, or the intensely glaring heat waves shrouding remote, windswept deserts, or hulking blue ice sheets crashing precipitously into chill Arctic oceans, or the devastating … Read more
Tips of Spring The bare branches tacitly precise point gnarled fingers and wave lacy tendrils like brooms sweeping the sky like hair standing on end each strand preposterous and defined coy, but flirting capillaries. This spiky punk rock stage will pass the spring cleaning will finish the monochromatic veins and bony limbs will soon be … Read more
This is Me I’m a room’s golden glow paneled in luminous framed prints, refracting and shiny with a tossed, jauntily quilted pillow demanding attention. I’m the waxed wood floors, slightly gritty, a bright bouquet of yellow freesia beckoning buoyantly, and a tempting stack of books close by. I’m an empty rocking chair, inviting embrace a … Read more