Dear friends,
Sharing one last poem (for now) to close our month of Love Poems. It has been a comfort to me sharing these poems I love. And it has been so sweet to connect with you, through the worlds of the poems. Thank you to the poets and their words, which acted as portals, blankets, nourishment, vibration for my bones, flowers for my brain. And thank you to you for reading or listening to them. It really did soften the loneliness of this time, just a little. I am grateful.
Starting now, this newsletter will be much less frequent, no more than once/week, probably closer to once or twice/month. I still have many poems I would love to share that didn’t happen to flow into this particular month. Some other things that will likely be included:
art I come across and want to experience with other people
opportunities to support mutual aid, abolition, and other communal care
upcoming practices and projects I’ll be sharing, if you’d like to join
photos of Thames, my cat?
I would also love for this to be a place to continue to connect. If you have a poem or book you can’t stop thinking about, if there’s an organization you want to uplift, if there’s a podcast or tv show you’ve been obsessed with, please send it my way. It has, no exaggeration, flooded my body with joy to get emails this month telling me you liked a poem and just wanted to say hi.
That’s it for now. If you’d like to re-visit any poems from the month, they’re archived here.
Much love, Hope
Every day as a wide field, every page by 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.
One more poem, and thank you