This morning I had the treat of listening to my friend and Rumi's Caravan fellow traveler Kay Crista share some of her poetry and memoir writing (on a monthly Zoom poetry sharing). Sometimes transcendent, sometimes plumbing great depths, Kay's work and the way she delivers it reveal her luminous soul. I'm not exaggerating. It was a marvelous half hour, time well spent. You can get listen to the recording here with Passcode: ROp*Q!2=
It led me to reflecting on the wonderful diversity in poetic voices. How we each experience the world and then reflect on it and shape it into new and original forms of language... well, it's a miracle. How wonderful that we have others' art and voices to appreciate and be moved by.
My own poetic way seems to be one of simple language and images. Who knows why the poems come to us in the way they do? I don't often have a poem with a lighter or more humorous touch emerge, but one small one did come to me recently. It's not at all that the subject matter is funny. On the contrary. I do think of it as in the realm of the elder, though I'm sure many youngers can also relate.
The pains of living,
sometimes existential,
sometimes physical,
are like the phone
ringing constantly,
or the doorbell.
You want to write a poem,
or dive into meditation,
or watch the birds at the feeder,
but there it is again-
Ring! Ring! Ring!
“I’m here again.
Pick up the phone.”
Ring! Ring! Ring!
“Answer the damned door!”
Just a reminder that Rumi's Caravan will be in Sebastopol next Saturday, February 11th for our first large event in three years!
