Poem of the Week: If You See a Fairy RIng, from Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare

If you see a fairy ring
In a field of grass,
Very lightly step around,
Tiptoe as you pass;
Last night fairies frolicked there,
And they're sleeping somewhere near.
If you see a tiny fay
Lying fast asleep,
Shut your eyes and run away,
Do not stay or peep;
And be sure you never tell,
Or you'll break a fairy spell.

American Sentences: June 22, 08

Saying good bye takes a long time when it's a person who's been well-loved

like this Sunday morning's fare well service to Pastor Walter John Boris

complete with elephant note cards on which we record our fondest times--

mine of the pillar candle he told us to bring for son-in-law Michael

that we've lit each week alongside two tall tapers in candelabra;

how he's gathered us over the years--for me the past two, and Sunday

before Michael deployed when the congregants spilled out to the center

aisle to lay hands while Pastor prays for safe return, preservation

of my son-in-law's integrity, peace for the people of Iraq.

American Sentences: June 5, 08

Does anyone read this blog that began when Michael left for the Army in Iraq this past February?
Back then, three months ago, I needed the immediacy of cyberspace to publish my thoughts as they arose, disconnected, troubled and fragmented.

At first I wrote daily but when I lost internet connection at home, I severed the rhythm . It's okay--it helped me to begin again.

I'd been lost in the downward spiral of sending a family member off to war. There are no words at the time--just the tick of the clock, the calendar pages leafing by and the drone of the car's engine when he leaves for the airport in the rain with four-year old Maizie, sleepy in the back seat, who accompanies her father to say good bye.

At school there've been the students with their varying degrees of awareness and understanding related to community engagement. This sustains me--the work to support students in their fledgling steps to set foot in a community center, homeless shelter, food bank, third grade classroom, a literacy development project for English Language Learners. This is the work that for me, means students have leadership opportunities to explore and deepen their awareness of what it can mean to commit to community, build community, and work to find themselves within its larger context.

American Sentences: May 25, 08

Memorial Day weekend. Sunshine and rain. The combination that keeps the air cool, clean, refreshing. I need the time away to reflect. It's been a busy past week what with grants to complete, projects to wind down, people who are leaving us to say good-bye to. And, also, taking time to plan for summer--that I make the most of it before we begin again. I'd like to go to London with my youngest daughter and she's arranged to take time off. We're flying to London end of July and will travel for two weeks before arriving in Oxford for the Roundtable on Women in Politics and the Professions--a dialogue on the barriers.

American Sentences: May 15, 08

This morning if I stop to fold the Pendleton
wool blankets from where I fell asleep
on the couch, reading interviews
with poet Li-Young Lee,

I'll miss the falling of the pink
petals, and not indulge
in how the blossoms drift down,
wander far from the source,

accumulate like sachet in empty drawers,
and tint the dark earth,
this yard with map coordinates, a place,
my spot, our home and terra firma, for now,

where my youngest, I imagine before moving in,
will ride her trike, dig worms, lift the cover
over beetles, expose sow bugs to the rain;
also frame of reference for eldest granddaughter

dancing to the Irish broadcast on Sunday afternoons
--I could go on: hammock strung between trees,
eagles overhead, the creek tumbling toward the future
down the ravine, where, perhaps, one day, ashes

will scatter in the wind to scant words of remembrance
and echo like birdsong in these branches.

American Sentences: May 6, 08

Avocations, essays by Sam Hamill, the one about Logan I
read falling asleep, seeps like saltwater and laps against the hull
of my mind, a song on the song of poets, and that line that applies to me,
"A man that abandons a friend who has learned with him
no longer has a share in speech," and "We must articulate
our lives because the very act of speaking defines ourselves."

American Sentences: May 4, 08

All the tasks wait for me at the garden gate:
deadhead
the pink blossoms,
separate
the wild sweet peas
growing like Bible tares
from rosemay, oregano and tarragon--
the herbs I planted when Chris left
for college;
email and return calls--days
blacked
out in calendar hours, a schedule
of arrivals and departures
that becomes
the emotional terrain
of family, the widening sphere
of planet earth that today looks tame
within its gated community
while in Iraq
where my son-in-law serves,
families have lost their pleasure domes
and gardens fill with weeds.