Thursday, October 19, 2023

A Gathering of Poetry: October 2023

It's the third Thursday of the month so I'd like to welcome you to A Gathering of Poetry. I never have a good response when the clerk asks if I've found everything; this poem has given me one that I will be using for a while.

Everything, Anything
by Laura Grace Weldon
“Find everything you’re looking for?” a clerk asks
and I say, “I’m still looking for world peace.”
“Can I get you anything else?” a nurse asks
and I say, “Yes, a safe haven for refugees.”
For a millisecond, their faces soften
as they take a deep breath of imagining
then laugh or shake their heads
or commiserate. For a few minutes
we might even discuss
our planet’s highest possibilities.
Maybe that deep breath,
that imagining,
is a starting place.
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Weldon, Grace Laura. "Everything, Anything." Poems of Presence II, edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby Wilson, Grayson Books, 2023, pg. 48. 
You can read more about the poet here
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Thanks for reading and joining us for our monthly Gathering of Poetry. Be sure to visit Kym and Kat so you can gather more poetry and you can add your link below if you would like to share one of your favorite poems. The more the merrier!

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8 comments:

  1. A very appropriate poem for our troubling times! Thank you for sharing it.

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  2. I just love that poem, Bonny! (In fact, it was one on my "short-list" for today's gathering.) Poetry just has a way of speaking the words we need to hear. XO

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  3. What a perfect poem for how the world feels right now. Thank you.

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  4. Perfect!! I will be using some of those lines as well.

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  5. Oh Bonny, this poem is so perfect. I've been thinking a lot about imagination lately (I think it started when I read a Marilynne Robinson essay months back that drove home the point that imagination drives progress - if we can't imagine something, we don't work to make it real) ... and I'm trying VERY HARD to imagine what that kind of peace looks like.

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  6. I love this poem. Like others, I might borrow some of those lines. The word imagining brings to mind a phrase Krista Tippett often uses, "moral imagination." What if we had more leaders in this country with a moral imagination? if only . . .

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  7. beautiful for our times right now.

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  8. This poem brought tears to my eyes... thank you so much for sharing, Bonny!

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Thank you for visiting and taking the time to comment! :-)