For making sense of these serious, shifting and unsettled times, it definitely helps to have writing friends who use their words to respond to what goes on around us. I'm fortunate to share in the poems, essays, songs, novels, memoirs, and fiction manuscripts from the monthly writer's group I've been part of for over 25 years. We stay surprised, grateful for the work that surfaces in this supportive milieu. In addition, we rely on each other's perspectives about anything.
A recent poem George Ella Lyon shared with all of us gave me the idea to feature it on my blog, with a few photos of mine that could have a connection. I next hoped the other five of us would share some words over the next weeks or months. I'd like to add photos when it works to do so. I look forward to seeing what we come up with!
When George Ella recently sent us all this poem, she included a short paragraph with it, which follows:
Thank you [all] so much for responding to my poem in such a deep & thoughtful way. I wrote it in the early fall of 2008 when I was at the Mary Anderson Center as that financial crisis was unfolding. I was concerned, of course, but I had a meadow, abloom with fall flowers, to walk in. I had the birds, the butterflies & dragonflies, the lake, the woods. I experienced such presence and consolation. Ever since then I've had that meadow in my heart to return to.
May we all have such places. May we honor them & each other.
THE MEADOW DOES NOT KNOW
about the stock market.
Today she is worth
exactly what she was worth
yesterday, a year ago, at creation.
taxable assets. I mean
milkweed and copper moths
honeybees, cow vetch,
king snakes. Meadow life
is not money. What rises
and falls here are stems
and flowers, leaves and fruit.
No zigzag line of profit and panic
but the great wheel turning.
Here God gives of her
extravagance and here, like
flicker, viceroy, dragonfly
we come into our inheritance.
George Ella, thank you.
