Poetry Thursday: Tom Wayman

Did I Miss Anything?

by Tom Wayman

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
on earth.

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered

but it was one place

And you weren’t here



[Via Poetry 180. Reprinted for educational and personal use only. Copyright Tom Wayman, 1993. Image of Mary's assumption into Heaven via Glorious Mysteries].

Poetry Thursday: Marvin Bell

Around Us
by Marvin Bell

We need some pines to assuage the darkness
when it blankets the mind,
we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly
as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of
needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind,
and a blur or two of a wild thing
that sees and is not seen. We need these things
between appointments, after work,
and, if we keep them, then someone someday,
lying down after a walk
and supper, with the fire hole wet down,
the whole night sky set at a particular
time, without numbers or hours, will cause
a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap--
to close round the moment and the thought
of whatever good we did.

school daze

a lot and too much happening, almost all exciting.

sorry not posting much.

a brief list of why:

Mona back to school here...

...me back to school here and here....

...working hard with the amazing and dedicated citizens' group School Modernization Campaign on the DC Master Facilities Plan....

Finishing some work with the National Vacant Properties Campaign on the much-maligned, lots-to-love city of Buffalo (hey, kinda like my home city, which just got a new mayor and more).

I am a little high on la vida loca in meatspace these days. Virtuality sorta pales by comparison.

May it ever be so.

Poetry Thursday

Hope

Kay Ryan

What's the use
of something
as unstable
and diffuse as hope -
the almost-twin
of making-do,
the isotope
of going on:
what isn't in
the envelope
just before
it isn't:
the always tabled
righting of the present.

[sorta kinda via Poetry 180. Reproduced here only for personal and educational use.]

Monday Someone-Else's-Wisdom

From my Islamic counterpart in truth-seeking, Baraka.

Read her whole post. It is very worth the time.

I envy her succinctness: "...nuance and diversity are among the hardest values to uphold no matter where you are and in what age you live, even in the West today. There seems to be something that appeals to our lowest traits about wanting to make someone who disagrees with you shut up."

Indeed.

If it's "two Jews, three opinions," (and it is), what a miracle to find "one Jew, one Muslim, one opinion" today.

Happy week.