poetry

Poem of the Week 4/4/25 “We Can Be Sure That Love”

Here is the Poem of the Week, written on April 2nd. Our nation’s government was admittedly flawed before January 20, 2025. Forces of greed held us back from closing the obscene income gap, from legislating a livable wage, from reversing climate and other environmental catastrophes and making the super-rich pay taxes as a form of paying back what they have stolen from the poor, the middle class and future generations of life on earth.

Yet we can now see how much love shaped our government. It’s really extraordinary if you think about it. Our love was compromised, but it was there in our care for the poor–food programs and heat assistance and medicaid and more.

We loved our elders enough to provide social security and medicare. We loved humanity enough to do research to safeguard our health and heal disease.

We loved the earth and all interconnected life enough to regulate, however insufficiently, the polluters and extractors and abusers of the earth, and to fund the scientific research that gave us needed information about our impact and learn how to live on earth harmoniously and sustainably.

We loved our neighbors around the globe enough to offer at least some help when they were suffering, and enough to try to prevent wars and cooperate on global economic and all other kinds of well being.

We loved our neighbors enough to make sure they could have the right to think and speak and vote, at the same time as limiting freedom responsibly, just enough to protect everyone from harmful actions.

I could go on and on–so much love!

And now that imperfect but virtuous government is being torn down to the ground, and will love guide those who are doing the destruction as they govern? Will they create a more loving government for all? We may not know what is coming, but we do know, because history and personal experience have proven it, that love is the highest power on earth. We can be sure that love will rise again.

Two Sonnets Calling for Nonviolent Engagement on the Side of Love

The poem texts are below.

These sonnets are first drafts written the week ending February 28, 2025. In the past I have always put poems through many drafts before sharing them, but I believe the relevance and urgency of the poems written in this time of crisis compensate for the roughness.

My friends, we have heroic work to do.
The highest meaning life can have is ours
if we lay down our lives to fight the few
amassing wealth and using all their powers
to bribe or brainwash or intimidate
or crush or kill to stop the side of love
for all who live. Our enemy is hate
in any form that places one above
and others far below an equal worth.
We fight not for ourselves but what is right.
We fight for all who share this fragile earth.
We fight the darkness with the tools of light,
not harming just as we would not be harmed,
armed with a love that cannot be disarmed.
2/23/25

Our fear at how dehumanizing hate
now has the power it needs to kill at will
is urging us to run before too late,
but love is whispering, “There is hope still.”
Our rage at how hate treats the earth, the poor
and all not Christian-hetero-male-white
sparks thoughts of vengeful sabotage and war,
but love is whispering, “Stay in the light!”
We need to find a way to fight this wrong.
We need to stand with all who are oppressed.
At threat of death, may courage keep us strong
to speak and act to show that we protest,
to model worlds of love we seek to build,
by force of light no hate has ever killed.
2/25/25

Poem “The Long Fight”

I need to rebuild strength before I fight
because the last long struggle took my all.
My father fought against the fascist right.
Two ancestors helped bring about the fall
of slavery and white supremacy—
one lost an arm, one was imprisoned twice.
They nearly died so strangers could live free,
and now the stakes are worth far greater price—
the fate of every creature on this earth,
the fate of billions whom the few oppress.
What is this loveliest of planets worth,
its lives and loves beyond count we can guess?
As soon as I can rise from my sickbed
I’ll fight the side of death until I’m dead.

2/17/25

Poem “Savor/Resist”

https://youtu.be/aVgxHeRv6VE
The poem text is below.

This is a sonnet first draft written on November 26, 2024, a few weeks after the election and a few days before I got covid, followed not long after by the flu. The long stretch of illness and recovery derailed my “Poem of the Week” series. This would have been the next in line, and it still speaks to where I am and what I feel called to do. Does it speak to you? If so, please leave a comment. I would be glad to hear how you are responding to this time.

I see two Scrabble signs at home each day:
one “SAVOR;” and the other one “RESIST.”
I see now they are callings to obey
to fight totalitarians’ fierce fist.
They suddenly have bought complete control,
brainwashing innocents with hateful lies,
exploiting fears, empowering every troll
to swing its club until the nation dies,
and sweet earth, too. So I am called to fight
by savoring and loving what they’re killing,
by letting that love guide me by its light,
by quieting to sense what it is willing—
love’s Tao or Spirit that wants life to thrive.
Savor. Resist. It’s why I am alive.
11/26/24

Poem of the Week, November 22, 2024

The poem text is below.

T. S. Eliot wrote, “…a poet’s mind is…constantly amalgamating disparate experience… [it] falls in love, or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the typewriter or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes.”

This hai-net series of seven loosely linked haiku “amalgamates disparate experiences” including these:
a late fall walk in very dry woods;
the election aftermath in our nation;
accelerating climate chaos and the possibility of extinction;
retirement, aging and not too far out there now, death;
John Peck’s poetry teaching fifty years ago;
Brian McLaren’s must-read book “Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart;”
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s classic “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants;”
David Hinton’s book “Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China;”
a love of Taoism;
a daily meditation practice;
Philippians 4;
the ancient Christian contemplative and mystical path of self-emptying (kenosis) leading to transformation of consciousness (metanoia) leading to an increased capacity for seeing oneness and acting with unconditional love (agape) leading to building the beloved, peaceable community of all creatures on earth (koinonia);
and separation from a beloved.

The result is, I hope, something that some may find beautiful or useful or both, but it’s just a first draft and first take video, so we’ll see if it sparks anything for you! Thank you! You can find more polished poems on my website at https://thomascarykind… Here’s the poem’s text:

beech sapling brown leaves
lush earth ritual dress robe
such beautiful
death

deep leaved forest floor
trees disrobed
bare limbs raised up
naked prayer
of hope

drought makes trees exposed
one spark
then dry fall leaves
flame
ghost dance
robed in smoke

old monk
like fall oak
lives by letting go
leaves
seeds
lose life to save life

drought says
reduce need
loss means grief
heart art spark dims
hope lost
in the haze

beyond hope stands
love
charred forest
of oak loves lost
one acorn
sprouts green

if there is any
beauty
love and nurture it
let it
seed
your heart

11/18/24

Poem of the Week, November 15, 2024

The poem text is below.

The poem this week is a hai-net—that hybrid of haiku and sonnet—written well within the ten days of sitting shiva for an election that means the death to some degree of much that I have loved since I was a boy: nation and nature, kindness and peace, love and compassion for all. Still, life is beautiful and sweet, and when hope fails, love perseveres, and will not give up, I promise!

take a last look now
hard frost comes to this garden
so much goodness gone

dahlia tubers dug
sunflowers left out for birds
let kale stand and hope

hottest year ever
again and again fire ice
where does tao lead now

bless young activists
the old say bless warrior joy
our fall brings their spring

the tao wants freedom
health peace rule of spirit love
it outlives killers

we feed winter birds
we put dahlias out each spring
love and hope no end

light the cookstove fire
smell sweet garden harvest scents
rise from love’s oven

11/13/24

Poem of the Week, November 8, 2024

You can read the poem below.

Poem of the Week, November 8, 2024
First draft, first take, first day of grief

their diagnosis
terminal I can’t bear to
tell these chickadees

I walk the road north
saying sorry I’m sorry
to squirrels and deer

earth gives a sweet kiss
of dawn on our death’s forehead
goodnight poor humans

don’t tell old hermit
don’t disturb her prayers and work
stacking winter wood

ravens overhead
cluck like anxious grandmothers
who watch trouble come

han shan carves sorry
on each cold mountain path rock
only rocks will read

compassion kindness
our task always to choose tao
follow that way home

11/6/24

Poem and Gratitude for Election Volunteers

The text of the poem is below.

I am so deeply grateful for the many, many people I know who are sacrificing their time and energy to canvass and phonebank and be poll watchers and volunteer in so many ways for the sake of democracy, equality and the saving of the nation and life on earth.

I have given more of my all to this election than all the prior elections combined, but now in the final days my job is to serve as pastor to my community, so I am intentionally seeking the deepest spiritual place I can attain, meditating several times a day, and spending as much time in nature as I can tear away from my pastoral work.

Today what came to me was enormous gratitude for all you who are working so hard for this cause, and the strange thing was that I felt the gratitude was greater than just mine. I felt I had connected in me with the spirit that is in all the living things around me here, and I wanted to say thank you on behalf of all those creatures that have no vote, thank you to all my friends in swing states and working at home to make the world safe for all species.

So this poem and short nature video are for you. We are all with you. The force of nature, the will of the earth is with you. Please feel its power and joy in everything you do, and keep pushing until the polls close!

Chief Oren Lyons asked the United Nations
where was the four footed, where the eagle,
why do they not have their own delegations?
Excluding them cannot be right or legal
by nature’s law—the law that judges all
on how they treat all creatures and the earth.
Fifty years ago now he gave that call
and every day his words gain greater worth.
A bobcat crossed my field the other day
as I prepared my ballot for the mail.
Her grace and beauty took my breath away,
her powerful muscles, that mysterious tail.
It was my legal signature I wrote,
but hers the higher law, and hers my vote.

11/2/24

Poem of the Week, November 1, 2024

You can read the text below.

Friends, we are almost there—we are almost home, and that’s what today’s Poem of the Week is about (see below)! It’s really natural and even rational to get caught up in all the drama that is swirling around this election and to be feeling discouraged, disheartened or paralyzed by fear because of the fierceness of it and because of the stakes. (Read today’s 11/1/24 excellent free substack letters of Robert Reich and Heather Cox Richardson.)

We can’t let ourselves get paralyzed because we are almost home, and the saying is that a poll that is within the margin of error (as they all are) is within the margin of effort.

That’s what we need—we need to be giving all we have now for the next few days to get out the vote, everything we’ve got, and adding our voices to the growing joyful crowd endorsing Harris/Walz and Democrats.

In order to do that, we have to stay in the light, we have to keep positive and up, and there’s good reason to, so whatever works for you, wherever you find the light, please fill your vision with it now, and let’s take this baby home!

Here’s the poem, a stealth sonnet:






Coming home over Alger Brook
we saw, just as we crested
down from Blue Moon hill,
this brilliant yellow poplar,
like a flaw that flashes
from a gem—that radiant
thrill to see this candle flame
where all was bare, and know
our home was waiting
in its light, and now
when earth is shadowed
with despair it gives
the feeling life may yet
get right, or that at least
tonight we may find
peace, the comfort
of an evening by the fire, the quiet
darkness, letting stress
release, brief sweet fulfillment
of earth’s deep desire, reminding us
of all that we defend, the light
at this long homeward journey’s end.





10/28/24

				


	



			
				


	

							
Poem of the Week 9/13/24
			


	
	
	

			





You can read the poem below.





This is the most important moment of our entire lives for using our voices, speaking our truths, speaking the truth that our heart and community and earth tell us must be spoken. It’s wonderful that Taylor Swift uses her voice, but really, what will make the decisive difference in this time is each of us speaking, however we speak, to anyone and everyone we can reach–a check-out person at the store, our email list–offering our own words, our own story. Each late summer and early fall my least favorite birdsong takes over the airwaves in my neighborhood. It tells me what I don’t want to hear–that I need to get that woodshed filled, that garden harvested and put to bed, the homestead ready to be under snow. This sonnet is a first draft poem of the week, and the video a first take, celebrating the role of the blue jay in my life, speaking truths I may dread but moving me to action I need to take. This poem also gives encouragement and thanks to you for using your voice. I am so grateful–sing boldly, please! Here is the poem’s text, in classic Shakespearean sonnet form: 

The blue jays have a song and time to sing 
when they convey the urgency of fall, 
when sweeter songbirds shift from nest to wing, 
brains changing as they hear their journey call, 
so even if you squawk or screech or caw, 
the time will come for you to use that voice. 
Trust in the Spirit’s way, in nature’s law, 
in natural selection’s prudent choice— 
you may not know the reason why you write 
or paint or sing, why make neglected art, 
but jays remain when other birds take flight, 
and as leaves turn, their song can turn a heart 
to face the tasks put off too long by dread 
and speak harsh truths earth tells us must be said. 

9/7/24