Thought for the Day

Finding time for anything that matters

will always be a challenge. [. . .] 

~ Margaret Renkl

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Quoted from Margaret Renkl, "The Nicest New Year's Resolution I Ever Made," The New York Times, November 21, 2021

Margaret Renkl, Writer, Author, Essayist, Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times; Founding Editor, Chapter 16, Humanities Tennessee

Thought for the Day

[. . .] How lovely 

it would be to become something

that cannot be contained; to become

something so present, yet so far out

of reach that no man even thinks of trying

to lay his hands on it.

~ Tariq Luthun

_____________________________

Quoted from Tariq Luthun, "I Felt Nothing" in How the Water Holds Me (Bull City Press, 2019), p. 25

Tariq Luthun, Detroit, Michigan-born Poet; Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow; Community Organizer, Data Consultant

Thought for the Day

[...] what is more generous than a window?

~ Pat Schneider

 

_______________________________

 

Quoted from "The Patience of Ordinary Things" by Pat Schneider in Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby R. Wilson, Eds. (Grayson Books, 2017), p. 33

 

Pat Schneider (1934-2020), American Poet and Writer

 

Susan Bruns Rowe, "A Profile of Pat Schneider" at Literary Mama, March/April 2021

 

Gaza Funeral (Poem)

 

The lucky are those who have someone

        to bury them when they die.

            ~ Doctor in Gaza 

The too-short truce was all the time

they had to bury the dead boy lying

 

in their rubbled apartment. Already

they'd waited four days, the body

 

of their 10-year-old wrapped in

a blanket providing no warmth,

 

his last rites un-mouthed, never

to be heard amid the later bombings.

 

On the fifth day, hurrying past

the broken skeletons of neighbors'

 

burned buildings, the father spied

the guava tree that children used

 

to climb for its juicy, sweet fruits.

In the sand, giving way to the fallen

 

harvest, the father dug a shallow

grave and left his boy to sleep.

 

________________________________

 

The epigraph and some details for this poem come from Raja Abdulrahim's article, "As Gaza Losses Mount Under Strikes, Dignified Burials Are Another Casualty" in The New York Times, January 6, 2024.

Thought for the Day

[. . .] Light needs such quiet, gentle work.

~ Benjamin Cutler

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Quoted from Benjamin Cutler, "An Invitation to Light" (This is the concluding line of Cutler's poem, which was published in The Shore in 2019, and, more recently, included in the Advent Project, Day 15, December 15, 2023, of Biola University's Center for Christianity, Culture &  the Arts.)

Benjamin Cutler, Poet; English Instructor, Swain County High School, North Carolina