“What on earth can we do to make this sad and beautiful world a little softer for everyone?” — Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places
Once there was a woman who knit.
She knit the sky and the cemetery,
narrow alleys and the deep sea, the highway
and the willow, starlight and the bare bulb.
It was not easy to slip such things onto her needles,
but she knew she could do hard things.
Of course, she doubted herself.
That did not stop her from knitting.
Every moment of every day, the chance
to add everything she saw and tasted, felt
and heard, into one blanket large enough
to touch everyone. It never was quite large enough,
though, she every day, she kept on knitting.
She could feel herself how silky, how cozy it was.
What makes softness is no secret. It is love.
Sometimes she dropped a stitch. Sometimes
she lost the pattern and had to start a row over.
Sometimes she had to make up something new.
But she knew what she had to do. Something. Anything.
Everything she could to make this sad and beautiful
world a little softer for everyone. There is no end
to the work she does. Every day, she picks
it up, admires the progress she’s made, worries
about the holes, starts her knitting again.
Posts Tagged ‘history’
True Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, history, inclusion, knitting, story on March 30, 2026| 4 Comments »
The Art of Tragedy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camille claudel, ekphrasis, history, tragedy, women on February 17, 2026| 4 Comments »
When was the first time you knew
you would never be loved for who you are?
The first time you knew you would disappoint
everyone when you dared to show up
as yourself? I think of Camille Claudel
in her white frock, the lacy one she was forced
to wear. Her mother’s anger when
young Camille would return from the woods,
mud-joyously smudged, after a day
spent forming skeletons in clay.
A decade later Camille would be the one
Rodin depended on to sculpt the hands
and feet of his masterpieces. He would put
his own name on her work. Decry her talent.
Disparage her truth. Have you, too,
had your gifts turned to weapons used against you?
Have you, too, had someone else’s hands
re-mold the clay of your life into a story
you cannot bear? Could you, too, like Camille,
carve your most painful moment into hard marble
and offer it to the world to see, a moment so raw
people would gasp when they saw it,
even a hundred years later, and filled with ache
they would say, oh, my god, it is so beautiful.
**
Oh friends. There are so many unsung heroes in the world. And I am so glad that during Women’s History Month (yes, it still exists and is still relevant), my dear friend Kayleen Asbo and I are hosting a two-week series on relatively unknown, remarkably talented women artists with incredible stories. The first week we learn about Camille Claudel, the subject of my poem above, who was first worshipped by and then vilified by Auguste Rodin. The second week we learn of the wacky, resilient Suzanne Valadon who was muse to Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Erik Satie, and more, who forged her own artistic path, recreating the feminine from object to subject. It is STILL a radical act to celebrate the lives and contributions of women artists. Join us, please. Both weeks we’ll have six writing opportunities inspired by these women’s lives and their art.
From Tragedy to Triumph: Writing with Great Women Artists
March 4 & 11, 11-1 mountain time
Zoom
$50/$80/$100
Join me and the incomparable cultural historian Kayleen Asbo for a two-week class in which we explore the lives of sculptress Camille Claudel (whom we briefly met in connection with Rodin) and the wildly unconventional and irrepressible Suzanne Valadon, who began her career as the favorite model of Renoir and Toulouse Lautrec and though self-taught, achieved remarkable success and renown in her own right as a painter. We will marry inspiring art with poetry and our shared creative writing practice. Join us!
Three Teachers at the End of the Writing Retreat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, history, hug, teaching on October 13, 2024| 7 Comments »
for Uche and Jon
In a trio of ecstatic days
measured in boisterous laughter
and hours of impassioned conversations,
there was also that moment when,
at the end of a brilliant night,
we stood behind the stage,
our students still raucous
and basking in each other’s shine,
and we wrapped our arms around each other
and bowed our heads till they touched,
brow to brow to brow,
a moment so brief one could easily
miss it, but this, too, is history—
the quiet breath, the words
we didn’t have to say, the pressure
of our hands against each other’s backs,
the sweetness of standing out of the light,
tired and nodding to the beauty
pulsing all around us.
On the South Platte River Trail in Northeastern Colorado
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Colorado, eastern plains, history, letter, pony express on May 4, 2021| 2 Comments »
Some people say there’s nothing out there,
nothing but plains and the Platte and the sky.
A whole horizon of nothing,
and a barbed wire fence to hold back
all that nothing. But when you drive
through that nothing
perhaps a young scrappy man
on a half-breed mustang
will ride through your thoughts,
and hand you a letter
from one hundred sixty years ago.
For you, he’ll say with a tip of his hat
before he gallops away toward the west.
What might the past have to say to you
sent via Pony Express?
Perhaps something about
the beauty of nothing,
or how the road you choose matters.
Go ahead, friend, what are you waiting for?
Open that letter.
One Deep Purple
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged history, lilac, poem, poetry, scent, spring on June 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Age of Expansion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged history, junior high, poem, poetry on February 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Almost all I remember of seventh-grade history
is sitting in the back right corner
where I could lean my head against the wall
and look as if I were listening.
Those were the days when we still learned
that the Europeans had “discovered”
new worlds, and the indigenous people
were “found,” implying a subject/object relationship.
I never thought to question Ms. Estes about the terminology.
I only knew how desperately I wanted
to be discovered—preferably by Ron Didonato,
though he barely knew my name.
It was mid-semester when the note
arrived on my desk, passed along the back
of the room. Though the handwriting was messy,
the blue-ruled paper was folded neatly.
It was from the boy in the back left desk,
wondering if we could go together.
Circle yes or no. I certainly didn’t want
to be found by him, but I also
didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
Ms. Estes, up by the green chalkboard,
rambled on about European dominance
of a non-European world,
and meanwhile I prayed that an ocean
the size of the Atlantic might appear
in the middle of the classroom
so I could fall in or sail away before the bell.
It was only a few years later that history books
began to use the word “encounter” instead of “discover,”
which implies a reciprocity—though it doesn’t
change the fact that the Europeans
conquered the lands anyway and killed
and displaced those they encountered.
I remember I didn’t circle anything.
I remember I wrote something
about a boyfriend in a different town.
I remember the weight of the lie.
I don’t recall if I looked him in the eye
when I handed him back the note.
For the next five years, neither of us
ever mentioned again the encounter, perhaps
grateful for the ocean that rose between us
every time we met.
Trail of the Ancients
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged future, history, parenting, poem, poetry on September 1, 2014| 4 Comments »
Of course I imagine my own ruins
as I wander through the remains
of the towers built by the Ancestral Puebloans
at the edge of a high desert canyon.
Someday about seven hundred years
from now a woman with her two children
and her husband could be walking past
what is left of the river rock chimney
that stands at the center of my house.
She might run her fingers over the stones,
wondering, as I am now, why the people
left this place. And were they happy here?
And what songs did they sing? Her children
are probably tugging at her arms, begging
her to go. Please, they will say, this is so boring.
And she will agree to leave, but she will take her time,
her eye landing on a shard—it’s from one of my green
dinner plates. She picks it up, a real find.
She wonders what kind of food I ate.
And what kept me awake at night.
And if my children were easier. She drops
the green shard in her pocket and rubs
the sharp edge against her thumb.
There is never enough time, she thinks,
as she turns from the chimney toward
the voices somewhere further down the trail.
A Short History of Humanity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged action verb, history, humanity, poem, poetry on October 10, 2013| 1 Comment »
want
wreak
begin
leak
kill
make
swallow
break
climb
wait
chance
create
hold
hope
foil
choke
will
feast
lie
cease
argue
shame
try
again