Our Last Chance to Love by Jeff Foster (from The Way of Rest)

And because the earth could crack open at any moment pulling us downward into her fire, and because there are so many things in our hearts we will never be able to put into words, and because the dinosaurs lived and loved and died too fast, and because we are all here so fleetingly, perched on this fragile blue planet spinning in infinite dust, and because of all these things, let today be the day we finally speak our truth, even if we must tremble and sweat and wonder what the hell we’re doing; the day we finally listen, even if we don’t like what we hear; the day we finally receive the gift of life, oxygen in our lungs, our feet on the ground, our hearts open to each other, to pain and to pleasure and to possibility, the earth ready to crack open at any moment, sucking us into her ancient burning core.

THE LIGHTEST TOUCH

Good poetry begins with
the lightest touch,
a breeze arriving from nowhere,
a whispered healing arrival,
a word in your ear,
a settling into things,
then, like a hand in the dark,
it arrests the whole body,
steeling you for revelation.

In the silence that follows
a great line,
you can feel Lazarus,
deep inside
even the laziest, most deathly afraid
part of you,
lift up his hands and walk toward the light.

- from EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU and RIVER FLOW

Plus this Family Lockdown Boogie video / recording by Jack Buchanan - one of the best things you'll ever see about the shutdown: https://youtu.be/G-ugfNXYcDg

Thank you to my friends in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Canada, Bosnia, Argentina, Australia, Columbia, and Austria for sharing your current state of being. Your words became the below poem and inspiration for our 10 April online class. 

I invite you to first read this top to bottom. Pause. Breathe and take that in. Notice what resonates with you. And then read it bottom to top. Pause and notice. (Thank you to Kate Marie Mustaers and Winky Wheeler for reminding me of the beauty of capturing the everyday words of people and reading in both directions.)