Poems read :

~Trudy Johnston
Maybe love is like a mackerel line

When I was about 7 my parents
took me fishing in a small boat.
We each cast a line, a mackerel line,
a single thread holding many hooks,
over the side and into the waiting seas.
The line spooled into the inky depths
and when I finally pulled it up
there was one wriggling fish, some seaweed
and an old flip flop attached,
That which was wanted
and the abandoned detritus
of a careless world.

Maybe love is like that.
We cast our longing overboard,
watching it sink into the dark unknown.
There is no way we can determine
what we will land.
Love and kindness and connection
and pain and failure.
The present moment and our histories
all tangled,
and all caught from
exactly the same place.
To catch one, we have to open
to catching everything that comes with it.
I’ve been finding the depth
of love, and the preciousness of it
inextricably caught up with
pain too.
Love brings up things most unlike itself.
And I’m not returning any of it.


~Mary Turner
All day my heart says nothing but thank you (inspired by a poem of the same name by Jeanne Lohmann)

All day my heart says nothing but thank you
I breathe the words with every step
Still walking heel to toe with all of you
My mind can still see the peonies falling open like your beautiful faces

I am saying thank you, yes, to all that comes
And practicing dying with all that falls away
Gratitude comes easily after such connection
The gifts and openings of our shared humanity

Swimming in the merciful ocean, just being a fish
And with wholehearted joy I am saying thank you as I
Remember how it is to be nothing and everything all at once
The boundless love with which the dharma passes warm hand to heart

Ver todos los episodios