The poem within us

Poetry is a feel -- it might have a swing
or it might make you sing;
but it's sure to delight --
by day or by night.

I picked up a copy of The Christian Science Monitor from Sept 2, 2019 earlier today. On page 36 (subscribers can search for this online) is an article called 'This writer's job: Get kids to see poetry everywhere' by Henry Gass. There's a wonderful poem in the article (it's used 'by permission' so I can't quote it all) called 'The Rider' by Naomi Shihab Nye which begins:

A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast
  enough
his loneliness couldn't catch
  up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion...

Ms Nye is quoted as saying that in order to write poetry: "You don't even have to have a little idea. Just look around. You're living in a poem."

I love to flip open our book of poetry for this month, Boundless Light -- to drink in the page at hand, like Violet Hay's 'Safety' on page 101, which begins:

He whose thought is lifted ever
To the perfect realm of Mind,
In that secret place abiding
Shall a full protection find.
Safe beneath the Almighty's shade
He shall dwell--all unafraid.

That 'perfect realm of Mind' has got to be where ideas are intelligent, resourceful, attuned, orderly, unafraid, dignified, fresh, flexible, cooperative and harmonious, wouldn't you agree?

Let's listen for and share the poems within us.

Julie Swannell