Author Archives: poetry

Tuesday, December 18  –  “to ease attention off when overtight” We are 4 days out from the winter solstice (http://www.calendarpedia.com/when-is/winter-solstice.html).   But that’s for the future.  Now, deep into December,  is a time to treat long nights with respect (today: … Continue reading →

Advent folds toward Christmas with O Antiphon 1: “O Sapientia” the first day Monday December 17  — “It is the 3 strange angels . . . ” The “O Antiphons” are one of the few song-sets from the seven monastic liturgical … Continue reading →

Sometimes joy after grief awakens slowly, filled with stillness and soft footsteps. Sometimes joy after grief runs so hard it messes your hair and makes you giddy. This winter morning teases us here on The McNichols Campus, snow so light … Continue reading →

December 10, 2020 A birthday note from my Dad on his son’s (i.e. my) birthday in 2020 “this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love.” This day, 109 … Continue reading →

Dec 4 — e e cummings, “a little church”  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings) “around me surges a miracle of birth and glory and death and resurrection” A mid-December day:  lots of scrambling these days inside and across our work lives. Here’s one of e.e. … Continue reading →

December 1, 2020 – Tuesday of Advent Season “Companion is the one who eats the same bread.” –Dom Helder Camera This show stopping photo was not taken this year; weather.com predicts something like a wintry mix — some snow, temps … Continue reading →

November 30, early in this year’s Advent season My Lakota daughter, Mary Tobacco, lives on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation.  For some years, she and Fr. Bill Pauly, sj walked and ran and drove across that same land. She and I … Continue reading →

Friday, November 27 — first day after U.S. Thanksgiving This delicate and demanding Hopkins poem is beautiful; these days of less and lesser sun make a sweet time for Gerard Manley Hopkins’ brilliant, understated poem about soft paced sorrow, and beauty, and … Continue reading →

“to cry for a vision is a sacred task” The Lakota expression “hanblechia” means “he or she cries out for a vision.” It is the name of one of the most sacred Lakota rituals.  It begins with a sweat bath, … Continue reading →

November 23 – a late November poem from G M Hopkins Who knows what intuition led Hopkins to this metaphor – – a skylark’s wild explosions of energy and what happens when all that free spirit gets caged — skylark … Continue reading →