You Have to Be Careful by Naomi Shihab Nye from Yellow Glove You have to be careful telling things. Some ears are tunnels. Your words will go in and get lost in the dark. Some ears are flat pans like the miners used looking for gold. What you say will be washed out with the…
The Merchant of Venice (excerpt) Act 4, Scene 1 by William Shakespeare Portia: The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch…
Happiness by Jane Kenyon There’s just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust at your feet having squandered a fortune far away. And how can you not forgive? You make a feast in honor of what was lost, and take from its place…
Every first Tuesday of the month I post a new Creative Catalyst article for the Story Circles Network Blog “Telling Her Stories: The Broad View). Here’s the one for April “Cycles: The Rhythm Method” concerning creative cycles and some tools as we rotate through them. Naledi image taken from my large scale mural on linen…
Jennifer Perrine, of Des Moines, Iowa, won the Taste Test contest. Her poem “If Life Gives You Lemons, Make” was made into a limited-edition letterpress broadside by Virginia Artists for the Book. Every year there is a contest on a different theme that can be interpreted visually in a high quality book. If Life Gives…
Finding a Bible in an Abandoned Cabin Poem reprinted from “The Hudson Review,” Vol. LIX, no. 4, Winter, 2007, by permission of Robert Wrigley Under dust plush as a moth’s wing, the book’s leather cover still darkly shown, and everywhere else but this spot was sodden beneath the roof’s unraveling shingles. There was that back-of-the-neck…
—from “Insect Life of Florida” by Lynda Hull In those days I thought their endless thrum was the great wheel that turned the days, the nights. In the throats of hibiscus and oleander…
The opening of Dea Mitchell’s exhibit was a magnificent gala showing off his work to good effect. We met old friends and made new ones. My lime green hat is magical at bringing new connections into my life. Scamper on down to Portfolio Gallery & Education Center to see their newest exhibit of Dean Mitchell’s…
Last July I received both the ultimate compliment and the ultimate joy. A very fine poet, Stephen Kuusisto wrote a poem especially for Riehlife. His email that day was the jewel in my inbox. Strangely the day I received his email, I was in Northern California in an internet cafe…back in my old stomping grounds…
One of the better side benefits from dedicated blogging is that you make friends. Sometimes, very good friends. If you aren’t a pro-blogger, you meet others similarly involved in this labor of love. I’ve been lucky in the friends Riehlife has attracted to our village. Two such friends, as yet unseen, are poet Stephen Kuusisto…