Every day as a wide field, every page

Naomi Shihab Nye

1

Standing outside

staring at a tree

gentles our eyes

We cheer

to see fireflies

winking again

Where have our friends been

all the long hours?

Minds stretching

beyond the field

become

their own skies

Windows   doors

grow more

important

Look through a word

swing that sentence

wide open

Kneeling outside

to find

sturdy green

glistening blossoms

under the breeze

that carries us silently

2

And there were so many more poems to read!

Countless friends to listen to.

We didn’t have to be in the same room—

the great modern magic.

Everywhere together now.

Even scared together now

from all points of the globe

which lessened it somehow.

Hopeful together too, exchanging

winks in the dark, the little lights blinking.

When your hope shrinks

you might feel the hope of

someone far away lifting you up.

Hope is the thing ...

Hope was always the thing!

What else did we give each other

from such distances?

Breath of syllables,

sing to me from your balcony

please! Befriend me

in the deep space.

When you paused for a poem

it could reshape the day

you had just been living.

scapegoat 

noun

1.a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.

2. one that is the object of irrational hostility

“Scapegoating is a destructive defense mechanism where individuals or groups redirect blame for failures, frustrations, or guilt onto a specific, often vulnerable, target. 

It creates a false narrative, relieving the "blamer" of responsibility while punishing the "scapegoat" through unfair criticism and exclusion. 

Common in families, workplaces, and society, this behavior often stems from a need to avoid addressing deeper dysfunction.”

I didn’t read a manual on how-to-become a legendary scapegoat. I didn't know that being on the wrong side of the blame game could become a skill. But when you’re blamed for the failures of others over and over again, the process of being scapegoated becomes a habit. And like any habit that is diligently repeated, you can get so good at being blamed for other people’s shortcomings, you become an expert scapegoat against your own will.

Working Together

David Whyte

We shape our self
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause,

to produce
the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

traveled at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,
and look for the true

shape of our own self,
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us. 

By every reasonable measure, I am a poor judge of character.

For the last fifty years, I have allowed myself to invest my heart, time, energy, and resources into countless failed relationships because my stubborn desire to believe the best in people mattered more to me than trusting my better judgment about situations I knew were doomed from the start…

❤️

Bird-Understander

Craig Arnold

Of many reasons I love you here is one

the way you write me from the gate at the airport

so I can tell you everything will be alright

so you can tell me there is a bird

trapped in the terminal      all the people

ignoring it       because they do not know

what to do with it       except to leave it alone

until it scares itself to death

it makes you terribly terribly sad

You wish you could take the bird outside

and set it free or       (failing that)

call a bird-understander

to come help the bird

All you can do is notice the bird

and feel for the bird       and write

to tell me how language feels

impossibly useless

but you are wrong

You are a bird-understander

better than I could ever be

who make so many noises

and call them song

These are your own words

your way of noticing

and saying plainly

of not turning away

from hurt

you have offered them

to me       I am only

giving them back

if only I could show you

how very useless

they are not

The Heart Under Your Heart

Who gives his heart away too easily must have a heart
under his heart.
—James Richardson 

The heart under your heart
is not the one you share
so readily so full of pleasantry
& tenderness
it is a single blackberry
at the heart of a bramble
or else some larger fruit
heavy the size of a fist
it is full of things
you have never shared with me
broken engagements bruises
& baking dishes
the scars on top of scars
of sixteen thousand pinpricks
the melody you want so much to carry
& always fear black fear
or so I imagine you have never shown me
& how could I expect you to
I also have a heart beneath my heart
perhaps you have seen or guessed
it is a beach at night
where the waves lap & the wind hisses
over a bank of thin
translucent orange & yellow jingle shells
on the far side of the harbor
the lighthouse beacon
shivers across the black water
& someone stands there waiting

Craig Arnold