Do we remember how ... to listen ... 

These words ... first words ... came to me in December ... when I began to read James Zogby’s book ... Arab Voices.  Since then I’ve finished Zogby’s book ... but still the thoughts that rose ... rise on ...

A world

a world

reaches out and

calls to me ...

Force, force, force, force ...

either and ...

every side ...

I will destroy those

who will oppose me

I will fight until ...

I can fight ...

no more ...

how do we find our way to

Let them go ...

all the weapons ...

all the guns ...

all the ways that ...

we destroy ...

lay them down ... 

let them go ...

in this moment ...

now ...

please ...

now ...

let them ...

go ... 

What is it that this term truly means.  A war raged.  One that wasn’t meant ... to rage.  Mankind hoped the Great War, the war that had called so many of the world ... to come ... to die ... to leave so great a gulf ... 

Mankind

Some birthdays are ... so easy ... to remember.  Every four years ... my mother’s was Inauguration Day ... here ... in the States.  My father was an April Fool ... the world remembers his ... day ... still.

The birthday I married approaches.  15 April.  Tax deadline

First words I heard ... this morning ... 0400 ... BBC.

Children gone ... children hurt ... adults gone ... as well.

Once ... for a while ... this was my life ...

This morning as I hear the words ... these words ... every part

Always ... it is morning ... when familiar church bells ... ring ...

We were seven ... when we met.  Second grade.  St. Ann’s ... Neponset ... Dorchester ...

She lived almost across the street from the church.  I lived at the parish’s far end.  One way

would the words stand on their own ...   

first words ...

written words ...

for most of us ...

Sometimes perhaps, when one ... creator ... hasn’t perfectly understood the other, when one misses ... what the other sees ...

but ...

when the one

So many trains.  

Sometimes when we read something here, we respond in the moment.  Sometimes we can share that response straightaway.  Sometimes we can barely hold it ourselves.  Sometimes it reaches something still too raw.

So with this.  I’ll l

Given everything else happening in the world right now ... even here, this is so unimportant.  But ... in the moment ... it was a moment ... and it was hard to let it go.  All fears becoming one ... perhaps ...

Fear ...  Active Fear ...

“ I need to ask you if you fully appreciate ...”  or words to that effect kept floating through my mind when I saw a recent prompt.  Too many other emotions floated then for me to pretend to write a piece.

I had had the temerity to fall

“Write a poem and then draw a picture that will help us understand your poem.”

I do not remember how old I was or which nun spoke those words.  Was it seventh grade.  

I remember fear.  Draw a picture.  Draw.  Fear.  Fear.  Fear.

I

Only one word rises. 

Love.

How many hearts are holding you here.

Is all of life composed of layers.  How many layers came together yesterday.  “Innocence of a wedding day” I heard Simon Schama say.  The Bishop of London spoke to the now royal couple of hope.  All is cherished.  All possible.

Chaucer, a London poet, mad

A nonsense moment. Here. I need not to think about tornadoes for a while. They terrify me. When I was little, I thought they only happened in The Wizard of Oz. No one here has cellars. Go to a closet. I used to wonder how I would hold my

I have been writing this for days.  Weeks now.  Almost a month.  How much is mine to tell.  

Today I can barely find a word of news.  If I could hear it, could I really hear it.  I only want to hear ... what I want to

A friend asked to listen to a certain song.  Another friend played the song, and I listened to a piece I'd never heard.  At first I listened for the friend who'd wanted to hear the song.  And as I listened, I looked out on a rainy beach. As time went