How to Find Poems

Consider everything a vast invitation.
Open wide to the unseen.
Look with mountain eyes.
Cease worshiping ordinary time.

Relax your grip.
Forget about safe routes.
Crawl into dark holes and wet tunnels.
Let yourself be scared.
Get lost.
Be found.

Let your lineage of ache teach you
and find its way to the page.
Let your lineage of wisdom teach you
and find its way to the page.

Don’t believe the urgency.
Walk.  Pause often.  See with your feet.
Celebrate what is still thriving on this planet.
Praise.
Praise often.

Listen to the pen.
Forget who you thought it belonged to.
Fall off the page.

Place yourself on the precipice of humanity.
Write what you wish you hadn’t seen.

Let storms reconfigure you.
Write the before and after.

Risk expressing what’s hidden
inside the folds of your life.
Invite words to bleed
and breathe onto the page.

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Questions for Contemplation

1.  Which lines or stanzas of the poem
speak to you the most right now? Choose one and reflect on it for a while. What is evoked in you?

2. Where in your life do you often choose safety rather than take risks? What keeps you from taking more risks?

3. When has a challenging situation or event catalyzed significant transformation in your life? In what ways have you been changed by this?

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