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Category Archives: art+cards+prints
morning glories forever
Dear Philadelphia, I heart your everyday magic (and your morning glories that last forever!)
T.O. 1 Stay Engaged
Portion of a mural in Fishtown by Amberella
Stay Engaged is first agreement of T.O. as presented at Philly workshops.
Stay engaged helps me to check myself on the ways that I sometimes tune out or withdraw myself when something gets difficult, uncomfortable, or boring. As I become more aware of this, I also find myself accidentally returning to the mental to-do lists and tasks with the speed that one flips from social media post to post to post.
If one needs to break any of the other agreements in order to keep this one, keep this one.
goggles required
Water colors require goggles because she’s eight.
And because goggles are obviously awesome.
walking forward in that light
And updated bell.
I still struggle to find my own words but today I share a few words from a two poets; one who left this earth yesterday and the other whose poem has stuck with me since I first heard it aloud one crisp bright day in 2009.
I am not full of hope but I am trying. Really I am just trying to keep my breathing even for the most part. I am looking for the light, trying to see the light in every person I see. With that, I’ll leave these words and set off to follow my kiddos and their friend on the adventure they have chosen for the day: to play.
Praise Song for the Day
A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.
We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.
I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.
Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?
Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.
Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Alexander. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. A chapbook edition of Praise Song for the Day will be published on February 6, 2009.
Source: Praise Song for the Day (Graywolf Press, 2009)
