Inspired by C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves: My moon-sick eyes I turn from Sun above; Too brilliant, let me see yet silhouettes And trace them on my heart lest I forget These shades that show the shape of Light, my love. Permit that I might feel those phantom limbs Of One I neither see nor now…
A year ago today I picked up a copy of Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey in a Waterstones in Cambridge. I read it cover-to-cover without sitting and — admittedly — without purchasing it. I was intrigued, but, when I closed it and placed it back on its display, I realized that the fascination I'd felt with…
I've been rereading Ray Bradbury's (...may he rest in peace...so sayeth we all...) Fahrenheit 451. Actually, I'm listening to it on Audible; there is a performance of it by Tim Robbins which literally makes me weep. It's THAT good. Anyway, as I revisit this all-too-prophetic story of a society so frightened by what is uncomfortable, challenging, or…
When I was a freshman in college, I had the not-uncommon experience of feeling 150682234% overwhelmed. It was honestly a feat of grace and strength that I stuck it out, but by the second semester, how happy I was that I did! As that terrified, homesick 18-year-old, I went on a choir retreat and nearly…
I was a stranger here yet better known Away from all I thought myself to be— Away from all routines that made me, me, I found myself in being severed grown. Away from all the people I loved best I found myself in newer company— I found my soul in this older country Away from…
My feet pounding the pavement to the beat Of poetry that laid the cobbled street, I feel a shaking sense of bittersweet For a face I only once did meet And wind that sings its fingers through my hair Will not again its subtle secrets share, Nor will the trees and flowers for me bear…
A stillness falls and dimly-lit, A bell tolls distantly, As in this life we numbly sit For what we cannot see. The words of grief we hear afresh, A melody its gloss, As we seek out our souls 'neath flesh Remembered in deep loss. This room is filled with love-lost ghosts Of our most private…
That moment gone was but a spot of time Yet still I yearn towards its eternity, To find it past yet feel it presently For such moments are best realized in rhyme. But somehow this one fails to really be As full in feeling as it was before; In that one moment, not a second…
The words that lie written beneath our feet, Titles of saints, these graves in graven stones, The echoes of reformers' gracious tones Which once and still all sinners here would meet. And still these words evoke fascination Of both pilgrim and poet's seeking hearts, Quickening with the spirit each their arts, Knowledge grown into Imagination.…
Walking through Cambridge, inspiration is difficult to avoid. My apologies to those on the sidewalk who had to go around me as I stopped to give this poor bird a proper elegy. "His eye is on the sparrow," so 'tis sung But 'neath some foot or wheel its feathers flung- Poor claws curled up in…
