As we end Poetry Month for 2021, I am reminded that poetry not only serves our spirit, but also as a resource during times of crisis. Over the last year, online searches for poetry have increased dramatically.
Whether it be the wonderful work — captured on Saturday Mornings — of people like Naomi Shihab Nye, Mary Oliver, or Madeleine L’Engle; the poetic beauty of our strange mixture of hope and hopelessness, joy and sorrow, or action and stillness is a kind of palpable power in our collective and personal sense of being.
Like this one, my 'Poem for the week' -- "Shelter in Place":
Long before the pandemic, the trees
knew how to guard one place with
roots and shade. Moss found
how to hug a stone for life.
Every stream works out how
to move in place, staying home
even as it flows generously
outward, sending bounty far.
Now is our time to practice–
singing from balconies, sending
words of comfort by any courier,
hoarding lonesome generosity
to shine in all directions like stars.
-- Kim Stafford
What a fitting reminder and call (two things poetry so often does) to both end and begin a new season of living.
