Love Sent in Many Ways

(featured: Peeko on the couch, having a quietly relaxing morning with his Mama)

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I was really sad to hear of the earthquake in Turkey today. I was maybe better prepared to hear it with a lovingkindness dream last night, of myself being lifted up in love and carried, before I saw the news or the videos. I send my love and prayers. It’s always part of healing any bit of kindness one carries and/or shows.

My cat Peeko had just listened to a poem from Roula’s book Simply Being (featured photo), which I am really enjoying and pausing for reflection after reading one. He loved the poetry! he has never done this pose (he’s moved since then, not stuck 🙂 and appeared greatly contented. The poems read aloud really reveal their evenly measured meter and internal rhyme.

🐱—Peeko

The book has reminded me of my own poems in a book released the same year, mine A Little Honey Sweetens the Flame, and I loved comparing subjects, as Roula writes in her book about a specific painting by Van Gogh, and I included a poem I wrote about the life of Van Gogh as the man.

Roula’s “Lavenders” poem is interesting to read with my own poem, “Thinking Spring in January,” also containing lavender, and her poem, beginning about her daughter’s hands: “Hold my Hand” really had a beautiful comparison with a poem I wrote, as if from a daughter’s universal perspective, “Crown of Stars,” and in it, I mentioned Mother Mary’s hands toward the end, and then my own.

My poem, “Inheritance” from A Little Honey Sweetens the Flame about my own childhood and family sprung to mind as I’d read “To Savor and Relish” in Simply Being by Roula Maria Dib. And why the comparison, you may ask? Being reminded of a past poetry book by reading another’s one newly read allowed me to realize we may sit and write poems alone and at times feel it a singular competition of poet against themselves to “become a better writer” (my own feelings), or to write a book and forget about it to write a better book…and then all of a sudden, I read this poetry book with interest and notice what feels like Roula’s own delight in language and such a wide range of language, and it reminds me that this is what I’ve loved about writing and life: being in it, enjoying the different ways of words to write, and create, and live as an art. I will compile these main thoughts into a brief review to come, including the introduction (as I complete it).

As the Jungians might say, it is a nice synchronicity! And Jung might say, “the basis of this is there is unity in diversity.” And poems can be a form of love or attention to something.

Today, in order: continue my still life painting session two, lunch, vacuum, relax, make dinner, and then the local book club! We’re discussing a funny memoir book by author Jen Lancaster. 🙂 ♥️Much love!

Yesterday:

Sewing Surprise, Novel Neatness, Painting, and Miscellaneous