Slice of Life Challenge Day 23
For Lent, I signed up to receive a daily email meditation from Episcopal Relief and Development. The other day, the meditation was written by Sister Catherine Grace. She quoted from a prayer from the spring equinox service, “Let us be honey to each other.” That line jumped out at me and I wrote a poem. At school on Friday, a student showed up with this bottle of honey for the ice cream sundae party. This is the kind of honey we should be, home-grown and bottled in a hug-able teddy bear.
The Farmer’s Namaste
Let us be honey for each other,
Sweet on the tongue
tasting natural and real
lasting a long time.Let us be a cup of tea for each other,
spreading comfort and warmth,
close to the heart
shared with conversation.Let us be bread for each other
kneaded and risen,
nourishing the body and soul,
broken yet making whole.Let us be namaste to each other,
see the One in you
as you see in me.
Look straight into my eyes;
find only love.
–Margaret Simon
Beautiful!
Sent from my iPhone
Your poem is beautiful and warm. I love the way you chose the bread, tea and honey together as your foundations for the metaphors – it works perfectly.
Beautiful! You included all the elements that one would need to fellowship with others.
This is gorgeous, Margaret! It made me cry! So thankful for the people who are honey, and bread, and tea in my life! May I copy it and send it to them?
Carol,
How sweet that you want to share my poem! Thanks.
You bring out the best in everyone around you Margaret. Thank you for sharing your beautiful poem & for being my friend.
Wonderful, Margaret. I love the metaphors you used, all stemming from the honey & from your student & your readings. Nice to hear from where the inspirations come. Honey, bread & tea are a lovely threesome!
Beautiful poem, and so true. How much better would the world be if we did all treat each other as your poem shows?
Great poetic things you do naturally:
1. Using repetition to build a stanza structure — repetition that creates rhythm and forward momentum.
2. Knowing where to add punctuation and where to hold it back and let the line break do the work.
3. Sneaky rhyme (whole and soul, and internal rhyme — see and me).
4. Making the last line the shortest (4 syllables), couching it in a short sentence to conclude for maximum impact.
I really appreciate the time you take to analyze my poetry. You see so much more than I know is there. Stay tuned for a clogyrnach.
You don’t know it’s there because you just do it by skill and feel. How can we get our students to that point? The complex eternal question. Look forward to the clogyrnach — a tricky form, but the syllable lengths create some nice variation!