Posted 4/10/10: Just finished reading Thrity Umrigar's novel, "The Weight of Heaven". The Cleveland Plain Dealer writes, "Umrigar carries a burden as heavy as the title by using a tale of personal tragedy to depict the balance of power in global economics....Her observations are dispassionate and astute enough to deliver at both levels. This is a morality tale tuned to our times." Wonderful writing.
I love reading - especially poetry. It gets me into a creative, sensitive space, a space where living the essential is paramount. It makes me want to do my work. Some of my favorite poets included: Ted Kooser, Mary Oliver, Donald Hall, Judith Skillman, Jane Kenyon and Terry Martin. Checkout Terry Martin's book, The Secret Language of Women, published by Blue Begonia Press, 2006.
The following poem is being shared with permission from the poet, Judith Skillman, and Ahadada Books. It is from her book, Prisoner of the Swifts, 2009.
Seam
for Erika
Before the cutter
laid his fabric
out on long tables,
before his wife
chased the Runner Duck,
tall and sleek,
around its filthy pen
and slit its throat
to let the blood run clean,
before you or I came
to be fifty-four,
there were others
whose hands
held fronts to backs,
measured, chalked,
cut, and notched.
Those for whom
a yard of cloth
would become,
by dint of necessity,
only clothes. Your hands
on the feed dogs,
mine on the keyboard.
Let the sheep
be shorn, the ducks
be plucked, the shears
be hung. We owe
our ancestors
these renderings
of a present
filled with the joie de vivre
they toiled to give us.
Your bright handiwork
and extravagant flowers
sewn into place,
their songs sung again
as whispers within
linen-colored walls.
The following poem is being shared with permission from the poet, Judith Skillman, and Ahadada Books. It is from her book, Prisoner of the Swifts, 2009.
Seam
for Erika
Before the cutter
laid his fabric
out on long tables,
before his wife
chased the Runner Duck,
tall and sleek,
around its filthy pen
and slit its throat
to let the blood run clean,
before you or I came
to be fifty-four,
there were others
whose hands
held fronts to backs,
measured, chalked,
cut, and notched.
Those for whom
a yard of cloth
would become,
by dint of necessity,
only clothes. Your hands
on the feed dogs,
mine on the keyboard.
Let the sheep
be shorn, the ducks
be plucked, the shears
be hung. We owe
our ancestors
these renderings
of a present
filled with the joie de vivre
they toiled to give us.
Your bright handiwork
and extravagant flowers
sewn into place,
their songs sung again
as whispers within
linen-colored walls.
