The Academy of American Poets continues to send me appeals in the mail for more money. On November 27 I received a letter saying they’d reserved a special commemorative pen for me and would send it to me just as soon as I donated another $40 at least. As I am overrun with pens at the moment, I decided to reserve payment. The mailing also came enclosed with a William Carlos Williams poem (the ubiquitous “This Is Just To Say” poem they say was published in 1934, the year of the academy’s founding) printed on a card they tell me is 5×7, a size suitable for easy framing. How nice it is the academy cares about my home decorating needs.

Then for Christmas they sent me a postcard with a photo by Robyn Witschey embedded with two stanzas of William Carlos Williams’ “Winter Trees” poem:

A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

This doesn’t feel exactly Christmasy but maybe they were trying to appear non-denominational or religiously neutral. Fair enough. I just wish they'd diversify their poets a tad on the free stuff.

Snowflakes

Out of the bosom of the Air.
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

More Christmas and Hanukkah Poems 

My favorite holiday song is actually a Hanukkah song called "Feast of Lights," a song we once sang in grade school in St. Louis and I've never forgotten it. The song is done, as someone described it, in a haunting minor key (reminding me of "Little Alter Boy" in that way). It recalls dark holiday nights and contains such a beautiful melody coupled with its quavering hope for humanity which is prone to hate "because it's human to." I find most generosity of spirit available in this song:

Feast of Lights

I remember Mama lighting the Menorah,
Then covering her head she'd start to pray.
When Papa finished reading from the Torah,
Mama, smiling down on me, would say:

May your days and nights
Be a feast of lights
The eternal flame, may it glow in you,
And the Holy One,
May He know in you only love.

May the light of peace
Shine and never cease
And the glow of wisdom illumine in you
May you never hate, though it's human to
May you know love.

May you go through life
With your head up to the sky
May you never walk in shame
In sight of the light of the One
Who has no name
This I wish for you.

May your days and nights
Be a feast of lights
Have a warmth for all of humanity
For without it, life is but vanity
May you have love.

May you have faith, and
May you have strength, and
May the Lord grant
Your life will have length
May it be sweet but strong 

May your days and nights  
Be a feast of lights
Your whole life long. 

Hear the song

More affirmations culled from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo:

When feeling urgent,
you must slow down.

His explanation is particularly good. "A sense of urgency is a terrible illusion. [He's saying this and he has cancer.]

…When feeling like I will die if I don't have your approval, I need, more than ever, to die to my need for your approval."

Stop talking, stop thinking,
and there will e nothing you will not understand.
— Seng-Ts'an

Originally, the word power meant able to be. In time, it was contracted to mean to be able. We suffer the difference.

And if there is nothing that expresses the spirit of this blog, it is this quote:

In a world that lives like a fist
mercy is no more than waking
with your hands open.