Encuentros virtuales en vivo: Sรกbado 3 de septiembre, 13:00 EDT

El texto que escogimos para hoy fue 29 de junio de 1981. Los รบltimos besos por Nely Gonzรกlez.

La propuesta de escritura fue Escribe sobre un beso.

Aquรญ, ahora alentamos a los participantes que si asรญ lo desean, compartan lo que escribieron a continuaciรณn. Deja tu respuesta aquรญ, si deseas continuar la conversaciรณn. Pero antes, les recomendamos tener en cuenta que el blog es un espacio pรบblico donde, por supuesto, no se garantiza la confidencialidad.

Por favor, รบnase a nosotros en nuestra prรณxima sesiรณn en espaรฑol: El sรกbado 1 octubre a las 13 hrs. o a la 1 pm EDT. Tambiรฉn, ofrecemos sesiones en inglรฉs. Ve a nuestra pรกgina de sesiones grupales virtuales en vivo.

Esperamos verte pronto!


 29 de junio de 1981. Los รบltimos besos por Nely Gonzรกlez

Por la tarde, ya de noche,
tus รบltimos besos recibรญ
Con cuรกnto cariรฑo me besaste
Luego te diste la vuelta y a dormir.

Ya de maรฑana dormรญas todavรญa
Pero no volviste a despertar
Tus ojos ya no se abrieron mรกs
Ni tus labios me volvieron a besar.

Aunque el tiempo pase 
creo que no podrรฉ olvidar
aquellos besos que fueron despedida
que nunca mรกs me los darรกs.

Me diste uno
y yo te di tres
te dije que me debรญas dos y me los diste
no querรญas deber.

Despuรฉs te fuiste al amanecer
de aquel dormir no despertaste mรกs
asรญ te marchaste de mi lado
para no volver a regresar.

Yo solo sueรฑo con verte
y que en sueรฑos te pueda besar
Cuanta alegrรญa me darรญa
aunque en sueรฑos, poderte abrazar.

Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT August 26th 2022

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem Cicadas at the End of Summer by Martin Walls, posted below. 

Our prompt was: โ€œWrite about something forgotten and remembered.โ€

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โ€œLeave a Replyโ€), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโ€™re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Monday September 12th at 6 pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.


Cicadas at the End of Summer by Martin Walls

Whine as though a pine tree is bowing a broken violin,
As though a bandsaw cleaves a thousand thin sheets of
titanium;
They chime like freight wheels on a Norfolk Southern
slowing into town.

But all you ever see is the silence.
Husks, glued to the underside of maple leaves.
With their nineteen fifties Bakelite lines they'd do
just as well hanging from the ceiling of a space
museum โ€”

What cicadas leave behind is a kind of crystallized memory;
The stubborn detail of, the shape around a life turned

The color of forgotten things: a cold broth of tea & milk
in the bottom of a mug.
Or skin on an old tin of varnish you have to lift with
lineman's pliers.
A fly paper that hung thirty years in Bird Cooper's pantry
in Brighton.

Credit: www.poetryfoundation.org

Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT August 22nd 2022

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem SOMETIMES by David Whyte, posted below. 

Our prompt was: โ€œWrite about a question that is waiting for you.โ€

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โ€œLeave a Replyโ€), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโ€™re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Friday August 26th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.


SOMETIMES by David Whyte

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.

Credit: themarginalian.org

Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT August 17th 2022

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower by Twyla Hansen, posted below. 

Our prompt was: โ€œBegin with:  โ€œWe floated up to the starsโ€ฆโ€

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โ€œLeave a Replyโ€), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโ€™re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Monday August 22nd at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.


August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower by Twyla Hansen

In the middle of rolling grasslands, away from lights,
a moonless night untethers its wild polka-dots,
the formations we can name competing for attention
in a twinkling and crowded sky-bowl.
 
Out from the corners, our eyes detect a maverick meteor,
a transient streak, and lying back toward midnight
on the heft of car hood, all conversation blunted,
we are at once unnerved and somehow restored.
 
Out here, a furrow of spring-fed river threads
through ranches in the tens of thousands of acres.
Like cattle, we are powerless, by instinct can see
why early people trembled and deliberated the heavens.
 
Off in the distance those cattle make themselves known,
a bird song moves singular across the horizon.
Not yet 2:00, and bits of comet dust, the Perseids,
startle and skim the atmosphere like skipping stones.
 
In the leaden dark, we are utterly alone. As I rub the ridges
on the back of your hand, our love for all things warm
and pulsing crescendos toward dawn: this timeless awe,
your breath floating with mine upward into the stars.

Credit: Twyla Hansen, "August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower" from Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet. Copyright ยฉ 2011 by Twyla Hansen.  poetryfoundation.org.


Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT August 15th 2022

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem Deep Lane [June 23rd, evening of the first fireflies] by Mark Doty, posted below. 

Our prompt was:ย โ€œWrite about an eveningโ€”real or imagined–with fireflies.โ€

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โ€œLeave a Replyโ€), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโ€™re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Wednesday August 17th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.


Deep Lane [June 23rd, evening of the first fireflies] by Mark Doty

June 23rd, evening of the first fireflies,we're walking in the cemetery down the road,and I look up from my distracted study of whatever,

an unfocused gaze somewhere a few feet in front of my shoes,

and see that Ned has run on aheadwith the champagne plume of his tail held especially high,his head erect,

which is often a sign that he has something he believes he is not allowed 
to have,

and in the gathering twilight (what is it that is gathered,who is doing the harvesting?) I can make out that the long horizontalbetween his lovely jaws is one of the four stakes planted on the slope

to indicate where the backhoe will dig a new grave.

Of course my impulse is to run after him, to replace the marker,out of respect for the rule that we won't desecrate the tombs,or at least for those who knew the womanwhose name inks a placard in the rectangle claimed by the four poles

of vanishingโ€”three poles nowโ€”and how it's within their recollection,their gathering, she'll live. Evening of memory. Sparklamps in the grass.I stand and watch him go in his wild figure eights,I say, You run, darling, you tear up that hill.

Credit: Copyright ยฉ by Mark Doty. poets.org

Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT August 8th 2022

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the painting A Tower Of Blue Horses by Franz Marc, and read the poem Franz Marcโ€™s Blue Horses by Mary Oliver, posted below.ย 

Our prompt was: โ€œWrite about something beautiful.โ€

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โ€œLeave a Replyโ€), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโ€™re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Monday August 15th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.


A Tower Of Blue Horses by Franz Marc

Copyright ยฉ 2009-Present http://www.FranzMarc.org. All Rights Reserved

 Franz Marcโ€™s Blue Horses by Mary Oliver

I step into the painting of the four blue horses.
I am not even surprised that I can do this. 
ย 
One of the horses walks toward me. 
His blue nose noses me lightly.  I put my arm 
Over his blue mane, not holding on, just
   commingling. 
He allows me my pleasure. 
ย 
Franz Marc died a young man, shrapnel in his brain. 
ย 
I would rather die than try to explain to the blue horses
   what war is. 
They would either faint in horror, or simply 
   find it impossible to believe. 
ย 
I do not know how to thank you Franz Marc. 
ย 
Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually. 
Maybe the desire to make something beautiful
   is the piece of God that is inside each of us. 
ย 
Now all four horses have come closer, 
   are bending their faces towards me
      as if they have secrets to tell. 
I donโ€™t expect them to speak, and they donโ€™t.
If being so beautiful isnโ€™t enough, what
   could they possibly say?

Credit: On Being Studios SoundCloud

Encuentros virtuales en vivo: Sรกbado 6 de agosto, 13:00 EDT

Atendieron 7 personas desde California, Nueva York, Argentina, y Espaรฑa. El texto que trabajamos fue la pintura โ€œEl Doctor,โ€ de Sir Luke Fildes.

Lo que encontramos fue que entre mรกs miramos la pintura, mรกs cosas veรญamos, mรกs se nos cambiรณ la opiniรณn del cuadro. Notamos que hay un niรฑo pequeรฑo en un interior rรบstico acostado sobre dos sillas, su rostro pรกlido iluminado por la lรกmpara de vidrio en la mesa. El mรฉdico, vestido con un traje a medida, se sienta al lado de la cama improvisada mirando a su paciente ansiosamente. El padre del niรฑo, de pie en el fondo con la mano sobre el hombro de su esposa cuyas manos estรกn apretadas como en oraciรณn, mira hacia la cara grave del mรฉdico. Su humilde estilo de vida es evidente en la peltre, el trozo de alfombra en el suelo de piedra, y su ropa rasgada. El alcance de la enfermedad del joven se puede ver en la botella de medicamento medio vacรญa en la mesa, y el tazรณn y la jarra, utilizados para aliviar la temperatura del niรฑo, en el banco. Los trozos de papel en el suelo podrรญan ser recetas hechas por el mรฉdico para la medicina ya tomado. La madre esconde su rostro para escapar, para rezar y rogar, dando rienda suelta a su emociรณn, el padre pone la mano sobre el hombro de su esposa en aliento.

Alguien noto que si hubiera un sonido en esa habitaciรณn pudiera ser el silencio o el sollozo de la madre. Aun otra persona menciono que el silencio es mรบsica. En mรบsica silencio es un elemento fundamental. 

El mรฉdico aquรญ tambiรฉn es vulnerableโ€”รฉl no sabe si puede salvarle la vida al niรฑo. Nos deja esa incertidumbre. Fildes le puso mรกs luz al mรฉdico y al niรฑo y mรกs sombra sobre los padres, poniendo el enfoque en la relaciรณn entre el mรฉdico y el paciente. Un participante mencionรณ que lo lindo de esta pintura es que demuestra los logros que se pueden obtener cuando hay humildad de parte del mรฉdico. Aquรญ vemos que el mรฉdico fue a la casa y se quedรณ toda la noche con el paciente y los padres, cuidando al paciente.

Alguien pregunto, โ€œยฟQuiรฉn sostiene este niรฑo?โ€ y se contestรณ que las sillas, pero en verdad son los padres que estรกn en el fondo. Al frente esta la ciencia y al fondo la humanidad (los ruegos y la fe). Las sombras son lo que sostienes todo lo que se da. ร‰l te o cafรฉ que le prepararon al mรฉdico muestra una atenciรณn que le muestran de gracias.

En este cuadro demuestra un plano de igualdad en la humanidad. Asumimos muchas cosas, la historia evoluciona. Por eso serรก que esta pintura es tan famosa. 

La propuesta de escritura fue โ€œEscribe sobre una sala/habitaciรณn de cuidadoโ€. Los participantes escribieron sobre la relaciรณn de todo lo que se encuentra en la habitaciรณn del paciente y ahรญ es donde nace la enfermedad. Se continuo el tema del mรฉdico siendo mรกs relacionado con la ciencia y el paciente con la humanidad. La pintura evoco escritura del dolor de perder a un niรฑo al igual un hermano. Y que todos los cuartos son salas de habitaciรณn de cuidado. Y se mencionรณ que mientras uno crea la relaciรณn entre el mรฉdico y el paciente, hasta el nombre que se dicen รฉl una al otro se cambia, se pone mรกs familiarizado.

Aquรญ, ahora alentamos a los participantes que si asรญ lo desean, compartan lo que escribieron a continuaciรณn. Deja tu respuesta aquรญ, si deseas continuar la conversaciรณn. Pero antes, les recomendamos tener en cuenta que el blog es un espacio pรบblico donde, por supuesto, no se garantiza la confidencialidad.


El Doctor por Sir Luke Fildes, exhibido en 1891

Tate.org.uk

Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT August 5th 2022

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at a scene/song Across the Universe – I Want You She’s So Heavy by Joe Anderson, posted below. 

Our prompt was: โ€œWrite about a heavy burden.โ€

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โ€œLeave a Replyโ€), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโ€™re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Monday August 8th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.


Across the Universe – I Want You She’s So Heavy by Joe Anderson


Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EDT July 29th 2022

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem How to Be a Poet by Wendell Berry, posted below. 

Our prompt was: โ€œWhat comes from the silence…โ€

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โ€œLeave a Replyโ€), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโ€™re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next sessionย Friday August 5th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on ourย Live Virtual Group Sessions


How to Be a Poet by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)
i   

Make a place to sit down.   
Sit down. Be quiet.   
You must depend upon   
affection, reading, knowledge,   
skillโ€”more of each   
than you haveโ€”inspiration,   
work, growing older, patience,   
for patience joins time   
to eternity. Any readers   
who like your poems,   
doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   
the unconditioned air.   
Shun electric wire.   
Communicate slowly. Live   
a three-dimensioned life;   
stay away from screens.   
Stay away from anything   
that obscures the place it is in.   
There are no unsacred places;   
there are only sacred places   
and desecrated places.   

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   
Make the best you can of it.   
Of the little words that come   
out of the silence, like prayers   
prayed back to the one who prays,   
make a poem that does not disturb   
the silence from which it came.

Source: Poetry (Poetry)
-Rita Basuray, visual response to today’s prompt!

Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT July 25th 2022

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

Twenty-five participants gathered from various locations to read and discuss โ€œThe First Fishโ€ from Ada Limรณnโ€™s 2022 collectionย The Hurting Kind.ย We discussed how the word โ€œ[f]irstโ€ (appearing in the title) indicates an important event. The poemโ€™s speaker, calling herself โ€œa barbarous girlโ€, recounts catching a fish with a gold circled black eye and โ€œterrible mouthโ€ in order to be called brave. Participants saw the situation as one in which the girl lacks power; the narrator now as a woman reflecting on the experience with regret.ย ย ย 

Later, four participants read aloud their responses to the prompt โ€œWrite about a first catchโ€ and captured the groupโ€™s attention with accounts of: refusing to accept the doctor who her father saw as a โ€œcatchโ€ and catching a theoretical physicist instead; catching a cold, which was feared to be COVID and being โ€œvoted off the islandโ€; witnessing oneโ€™s self as being โ€œthe first catchโ€; and fishing as a child and wishing to ride away on the back of the fish that got away.ย ย ย 

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โ€œLeave a Replyโ€), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโ€™re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Please join us for our next session Friday July 29th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.


The First Fish from The Hurting Kind by Ada Limรณn

When I pulled that great fish up out of Lake Skinnerโ€™s
		mirrored-double surface, I wanted to release 
	the tugging beast immediately. Disaster on the rod,
		it seemed he might yank the whole aluminum skiff
	down toward the bottom of his breathless world.
		The old tree of a man yelled to hang on and would
	not help me as I reeled and reeled, finally seeing 
		the black carp come up to meet me, black eye 
	to black eye. In the white cooler it looked so impossible.
		Is this where I am supposed to apologize? Not 
	only to the fish, but to the whole lake, land, not only for me
		but for the generations of plunder and vanish.
	I remember his terrible mouth opening as if to swallow
		the barbarous girl heโ€™d lose his life to. The gold-ringed
	eye did not pardon me, no absolution, no reprieve.
		I wanted to catch something; it wanted to live.
	We never are the bottom-feeder, buried by the rosebush
		where my ancestors swore the roses bloomed
	twice as big that year, the year I killed a thing because
		I was told to, the year I met my twin and buried
	him without weeping so I could be called brave.   

Credit: Limรณn, Ada. โ€œThe First Fish.โ€ The Hurting Kind. (2022) Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions.