In my chapel, redwing blackbird unravels her liquid song in the cattails.

Knit six purl six sets of two rows four rows six rows up to twelve, patterns, repeating, steady, soothingly same. This is not what life is like. Life is like picking up a tousled hunk of yarn pulled out of the basket by an impatient child looking for a string too many times. You find an end. You...

Among other wonders of our lives, we are alive with one another, we live here in the light of this unlikely world that isn’t ours for long. May we spend generously the time we are given. May we enact our responsibilities as thoroughly as we enjoy our pleasures....

The Solstices teach us that darkness comes, that darkness goes. The Solstices teach us that light comes, that light goes. The Solstices teach us, calmly, silently, to be calm, silent. Learning. The Solstices teach us as we circle the sun that everything flies....

This is the key to the mystery, The Word became flesh.

Outside The flags fly Down the highway, hanging on to the back of large trucks or the chest of a man....

I know sometimes you get cranky, And sometimes your tea gets cold Before you can drink it. Sometimes The news is too much. The resistance Seems too little. That's real. But we are Here. Imperfect and together and reaching. You can hold my hand if you want. I washed It with soap. It's OK. In this...

What is the history of any thing? This apple, let's say, that my grandson just picked as he sits on my shoulders, feet dangling like parentheses around my heart?...

if we show them at all most of us who write our secrets down and call it poetry prefer to slip it under the door and run, and if we must be present at the reading, disguise ourselves in sotto voice and pale monotone but here was one who could take us into his personal life and show us around as i...

It is not old, Yet it comes through the wisdom of the ages. It is not young, Yet it comes through the passion of innocence. It is not revolutionary, Yet it comes proclaiming change. It is not solitary, Yet it travels alone, seeking the open heart. It is not lonely, Yet it seeks relationship....

Barukh atah, Emeth! Blest are you, o Truth. Like the fabled Moses, I too can never claim to have seen you “face to face.” Too often, I’ve hung my own face on you and pretended that I know something I do not. Indeed, my most honest heart confesses that at most, I have only caught the briefest...

shouting back to Stevie Smith who cried “I’m drowning! Not waving!” I ain’t waving babe, I’m drowning going down in a cold lonely sea I ain’t waving babe, I’m drowning so babe quit waving at me I ain’t waving babe, I’m crying I’m crying, oh why can’t you see? I ain’t fooling...

I stretch forth my hand Knowing not what I shall touch... A tender spot, An open wound, Warmth, Pulsing life, Fragile blossoms, A rock, Ice. I am tentative, trembling... Wishing to avoid hurt, Wanting to link my life with Life. Lonely, I desire companions Naked, I long for defenders....

This is what one hundred years look like: A rounded wrinkled back, sparkling wet and soapy above the shower bench, and my hand, having ­gently formed in your seventieth year, and emerged with lifelines bent ­toward blessing, scrubbing ­circles across your soft, white skin. I drag the cloth...

New ­People came this time, and we shared our stories, the familiar truths, about shock and healing and being glad that at last our children can say who they are, and we know them now, love them more. Funny stories and good news ripple around, and smiles about lesbigay ways, and jokes, against...

Now is the time to call on the memories of the ancestors who thought they ­could not walk another step ­toward freedom—and yet they did. It is that time and place to call on the memories of the ancestors who, when the darkness of their lives threatened to take away the hope and light, reached a...

Let my body remember. Let my hands and feet remember. Let my breath remember those who have come before me, those who have come before us. Didn’t Muhammad wait quietly in his cave? And didn’t Jesus sigh silently by the blue lake? And Guan Yin, didn’t she sit in silence thinking about what to...

There is a living web that runs through us To all the universe Linking us each with each and through all life On to the distant stars. Each knows a ­little corner of the world, and lives As if this were his all. We no more see the farther reaches of the threads Than we see of the future, yet...

We never know who we are (this is strange, isn’t it?) or what vows we made or who we knew or what we hoped for or where we were when the world’s dreams were seeded. Until the day just one of us sighs a ­gentle longing and we all feel the change one of us calls a name and we all know to be there...

I have been wondering what the morning glories know. Is it envy that compels these vines to strangle other flowers arising in their path? Or perhaps self-preservation, to climb these walls, forsaking humbler beings, winding greedy stems around the trellis in their hungry pursuit of light. Still,...

This is our earth. It falls through heaven like a pearl in a glass of plum wine. There are no other earths that I know of. There are no other skies that we have mapped. This is our earth. The Oneness who gave birth to it remains nameless. There was no midwife then to bring us word of the birth-cry.