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THE ONE ACTUAL PICTURE OF US I KNOW OF by Bob Schofield

for Kaylee

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Poetry Foundation

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Seamus Heaney

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‘How to kill a living thing’ by Eibhlín Nic Eochaidh.

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forsythia by Barbara Crooker

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The Way It Is

There's a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn't change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can't get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.

You don't ever let go of the thread.

-William Stafford

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Our story

Remind me again—together we trace our strange journey, find each other, come on laughing. Some time we’ll cross where life ends. We’ll both look back as far as forever, that first day. I’ll touch you—a new world then. Stars will move a different way. We’ll both end. We’ll both begin.

Remind me again.

– William Stafford, “Our Story,” Stories That Could Be True: New and Collected Poems (Harper & Row, 1977) (via The Vale of Soul Making)

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William Stafford, “Just Thinking,” in Ask Me

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Why I Am Happy

by William Stafford

Now has come, an easy time. I let it roll. There is a lake somewhere so blue and far nobody owns it. A wind comes by and a willow listens gracefully.

I hear all this, every summer. I laugh and cry for every turn of the world, its terribly cold, innocent spin. That lake stays blue and free; it goes on and on.

And I know where it is.

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Last night I finally found some poems that save my life a little bit

They were written by the Brazilian catholic archbishop Hélder Câmara, and very religious and spiritual in a beautiful way.

I think some people's religion calls them to live in a state of compassion and wonder that I find to be very profound

I don't know what I think about faith anymore but I think this guy understood something.

"Do not condemn us to be alone when together. Allow us to be together when alone."

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The Day

by Peter Everwine

We walked at the edge of the sea, the dog, still young then, running ahead of us.

Few people. Gulls. A flock of pelicans circled beyond the swells, then closed their wings and dropped head-long into the dazzle of light and sea. You clapped your hands; the day grew brilliant.

Later we sat at a small table with wine and food that tasted of the sea.

A perfect day, we said to one another, so that even when the day ended and the lights of houses among the hills came on like a scattering of embers, we watched it leave without regret.

That night, easing myself toward sleep, I thought how blindly we stumble ahead with such hope, a light flares briefly — Ah, Happiness! then we turn and go on our way again.

But happiness, too, goes on its way, and years from where we were, I lie awake in the dark and suddenly it returns — that day by the sea, that happiness,

though it is not the same happiness, not the same darkness.

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W S Merwin

September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019

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Jonathan Wells, “April Morning”

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I wonder, have I lived a skeleton's life, As a questioner about reality, A countryman of all the bones in the world? Now, here, the warmth I had forgotten becomes Part of the major reality, part of An appreciation of a reality; And thus an elevation, as if I lived With something I could touch, touch every way.

Wallace Stevens, "First Warmth," from Collected Poetry and Prose

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The katy-dids at Ephrata return But this time at another place. It is the same sound, the same season, But it is not Ephrata. You said the dew falls in the blood. ne dew falls deep in the mind On life itself and there the katy-dids Keep whanging their brass wings . . . Say this to Pravda, tell the damned rag That the peaches are slowly ripening. Say that the American moon comes up Cleansed clean of lousy Byzantium. Say that in the clear Atlantic night The plums are blue on the trees. The katy-dids Bang cymbals as they used to do. Millions hold millions in their arms.

Wallace Stevens, "Memorandum," from Collected Poetry and Prose