Alone
Les Goodman
***
Alone
by Jack Gilbert
I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. But if she did, I knew
it would be as a lady in a long white dress.
It is strange that she has returned
as somebody's dalmatian. I meet
the man walking her on a leash
almost every week. He says good morning
and I stoop down to calm her. He said
once that she was never like that with
other people. Sometimes she is tethered
on their lawn when I go by. If nobody
is around, I sit on the grass. When she
finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap
and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper
in her soft ears. She cares nothing about
the mystery. She likes it best when
I touch her head and tell her small
things about my days and our friends.
That makes her happy the way it always did.
Reasons to stay alive
Lora Mathis
“The key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don’t become them. Understand for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same thing as being a sad person. You can walk through a storm and feel the wind but you know you are not the wind.
Hope isn’t about waiting for a hypothetical future. Hope is finding the goodness in the dark and protecting it like a flame.
”
Some Nights
Marie Grace Soriano
***
Some Nights
by Kate Baer
Some nights she walks out to the
driveway where the lilacs bloom and
lies down on the warm pavement even
though the neighbors will see and wonder
what kind of woman does such things.
There she stares up at the slender moon
and thinks about the baby albatross filled
with discarded spoons or the time a friend
asked what she was working on these days
and she answered, “Who has the time?”
even though she meant something else
entirely.
Across the lawn the crickets sing while the
earth lets out its tired breath and wanders
through the trees to greet her.
***
The Journey
***
The Journey
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Have a good weekend.
Happy Fourth of July!
I hope your weekend includes swimming
and fishing and catching turtles
and laughing
and taking walks
and watching fireworks
and eating s’mores
and smacking mosquitos.
Go Deeper
__
You’re not supposed to be happy all the time. Life hurts and it’s hard. Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because it hurts for everybody. Don’t avoid the pain. You need it. It’s meant for you. Be still with it, let it come, let it go, let it leave you with the fuel you’ll burn to get your word done on this earth.
- excerpt from Untamed by Glennon Doyle
