Category Archives: Poetry

“over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” Some few years ago,  I was catching up with an old friend after too long a hiatus.  I tracked his email address and found a batch of emails.  In three … Continue reading →

“to cry for a visionis 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, singing … Continue reading →

Wednesday May 12 “The River is Famous to the fish” Soon after Mother’s day with its fountains of affection and admiration, I woke early (5:00 am) as Sandhill Cranes and falcons dancing across their several altitude layers – wind columns playing … Continue reading →

April 30 Posted on April 22, 2019 Must be spring; time to check Weather.com’s allergy tracker. Tasting the wind makes a respiratory spring ritual for me and many others.  Worth it, though.   Campus trees and flowers begin to show … Continue reading →

Friday, May 7 “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.” Several years ago, in early March, a friend emailed me some lines from Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Kindness.” She … Continue reading →

Monday,  April 26, 2021 In 2015, the Detroit News estimated 10 million walleye migrating from Lake Erie into the Detroit River. “April and May mark the start of the walleye spawn. An estimated 10 million walleye (sander vitreus, if you … Continue reading →

Friday,  April 23   “The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion” A long-time Jesuit soul friend, Bill Pauly, who died, too young in 2006 (heart attack), gave me Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems, Vol 1 in 2004 when I drove to … Continue reading →

Mary Tobacco & I have a Dad-and-Daughter 50 year kinship;  once a day or more we call in and ask each other: “tell me a good story;”  some stories are hard; some playful and delicious  — e.g., like Baby Marvin, … Continue reading →

April 19 – Pope Francis and refugees “. . . no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” Newly-elected Pope Francis spoke in July of 2013 to a world just getting used … Continue reading →

“To hear another’s voice, follow your own voice” This post appeared almost a year ago (April 16, 2020, to be precise). We sibs gathered at our sister Mary’s home for her April 13 birthday. Here’s how I began the contextual … Continue reading →