Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."
I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.
Break by Brooke McNamara
Rest, now. Let the weight you run from every day now draw you down. Later there will be more time to tend to everything left undone Now, rest. Fall into your own bones lying horizontal on this ground. Come into your dark corners. Come into this original nakedness under all the layers. Come where all your losses split you open. Don't rise, yet -- rest. Be drawn deeper down into the salt tide of tears. Let grief wash you, then drown you beyond the name you were first given, when you reached to touch your own mother's face for the very first time, and she smiled her light down into you. Now reach those same fingers for the face of infinity -- so that, opening your eyes, you will know the one dreaming you is pleased with you, that everything seen is your self, and that now is the time to rise wholehearted into the work aching to be animated by precisely you. ~ from Bury The Seed (Performance Integral, 2020)