Spirit Poems

  The Cutting of Hair by Larry Smith My wife cuts my hair has done so for 20 years since my crop fell off. Even when we've argued we roll out the chair, draw out the clippers and scissors from the drawer. She touches my shoulders, from behind and robes me in a half-sheet pinned at the neck. A buzz rolls over my skull; gray hair falls down my arms. My chatter soon subsides to the quiet of her caring as she focuses on ears, comes round to bring scissors to eyebrows. She loosens the sheet and I gather it up to shake hair outside while she cleans and puts away tools. How I love this woman. It's a ritual as old as Eve and Adam, the cutting of hair.

  Writing Is Not a Contest..... I’m going to come right out and say it. Writing is not a contest. It’s a creative act that can move the creator and others to share in art. A fine writer once told me that he moved from writing poetry to writing fiction… “because we poets seem to be fighting over crumbs.” And because submission and evaluation become a part of it, as does comparison, there has developed a whole host of “rules” for the game of publication and review of the work. Friendship and support go out the window when commerce or status enters. In the modern period there were publishing houses that kept a stable of writers. A loose collective of writers can be a strong and beautiful thing. Look at how New Directions Publishing evolved, or Black Sparrow Press, or City Lights Books. Because they believed in the writing and the writers, they produced strong and innovative work. It proved to be a movement, and it was good for all. As a publisher I often meet folks at bookfairs who co...

Sharing the dark...Larry Smith Winter Solstice I search our dark house finding clocks to be reset before going to bed then rise in morning when daylight savings falls away so our alarms are not late and yet we know that nothing is saved or lost just a measure re-gauged like February’s compensation day or a hopscotch of stepping on no lines but skipping a block or two making our choices. My wife takes my hand to go into the woods a setting sun behind a darkness rising through trees before us as for winter solstice settles round us gathered round a fire staring into it remembering while watching sparks fly up from dancing orange light as we each turn to utter speech across the flames yet drinking the silences of passing and becoming. And he in bright kente skullcap while she raising her bare arms in welcoming and beckoning one woman calls her prayer for forgiveness another confesses her love of nature and my wife sings to birthing and caring then to our welcoming darkness as we all sway ...

  An old story but true...

Prayer for us all....Terry Tempest Williams  I prayed for strength to remain open and receptive. I prayed to love and be loved in all its manifestations.  I prayed to be generous, to give and receive. I prayed for the forgiveness of those I have harmed. I prayed that I might survive my griefs and express my gratitude. I prayed to honor differences, while seeking unity.  I prayed for discernment, to praise what is beautiful and to sanctify what is not.  I prayed for the poor and I prayed for the lonely.  I prayed for the health and wholeness of all beings, human and wild.  I prayed for my body and the body of Earth, believing we are One. I prayed for arousal that leads us to birth.  I prayed for rain in times of drought.  I prayed for mothers in their times of need as they meet the needs of others. I prayed for each woman, whose heart has been ripped from her chest through sorrow and love, through violence and abuse, through forgiveness and grace. ...

 Here is our American Thinker sharing a vision  Thoreau's Journal - November 1, 1858 ...We are independent on all that we see. The hangman whom I have seen cannot hang me. The earth which I have seen cannot bury me. Such doubleness and distance does sight prove. Only the rich and such as are troubled with ennui are implicated in the maze of phenomena. You cannot see anything until you are clear of it. The long railroad causeway through the meadows west of me, the still twilight in which hardly a cricket was heard, the dark bank of clouds in the horizon long after sunset, the villagers crowding to the post-office, and the hastening home to supper by candle-light, had I not seen all this before! What new sweet was I to extract from it? Truly they mean that we shall learn our lesson well. Nature gets thumbed like an old spelling-book. The almshouse and Frederick were still as last November. I was no nearer, methinks, nor further off from my friends. Yet I sat the bench with perf...

  Some simple truths about Friendship