People of Light
My first blog posting began with the beautiful poem, People of Light, by Helene McGlauflin. I worked hard to type in the spacing for her poem exactly the way she had published it. I know poets usually choose the visual presentation of their work as carefully as they choose their words. In turns out, however (unless I am missing something), there isn’t a good way to center text with the Substack editor, so I did it manually. But, once the post was published, I saw that Substack did not display the poem the way I had typed it. The only way I could figure out to correct the error was to create a jpeg of the poem and upload it here.
Notice the shadows creating by my inexpert job of photographing the poem. Somehow the shadows seem in keeping with the poem’s message.
The photograph is a page from the book Read to Me Some Poem, Maryli Tiemann and Alice Persons (eds.), Moon Pie Press, 2023. If you enjoy poetry anthologies, I highly recommend this one!
Hi, Sylvie,
Thanks for including Helene’s important poem twice in your blog. And we sure appreciate your words encouraging folks to read our anthology, too.
I’m enjoying your thoughts within your writing. And, after all these years of knowing one another, it’s interesting to communicate with you this way.
I’m able to linger on your ideas, admire your ability to use subtle metaphor, smile at your shy humor.
It’s kinda like having a pause and rewind button on communicating so I can be more present to and in your thoughts. And I need this within this swirling world.
Recently, my family’s life has been challenged with upheavals and even tragedy, so I’ve been unable to keep up with my former “routine.”
And this includes reading non-urgent emails. So, if it seems I’m not “around” because I have not commented, please know how much I glean from your writing. And, eventually I’m gonna read your One Good Thing messages: ALL of them.
In fact, they may be among the most intimate moments of my communication these days. For I’m realizing how precious it is to truly pause to hear beyond our expectations of what’s said to what’s felt, what’s needed. Not to just have my turn to “say” but to meld with another’s heartfelt attempts to make senses. (Yep, I made that plural deliberately.) To connect with someone’s ordinary thoughts of hope. Just to really hear another soul, sharing out of hope.
And certainly that’s a worthwhile outcome of your blog. Certainly that’s one good thing.