Dear Reader,
I’ve decided this year to give poems as gifts to friends and families. Not because I’m cheap (though some might think so) but because Christmas at its core is a season for poetry and what better way to share your life and love with someone than to invite them to consider the beauty often lost in the slow and methodical trod of the ordinary?
There is a givenness to poetry, a reception, and a grace. Present when the poet takes up his pen and the reader lets those same words fall across their lips. There is a give and take, a push and pull, a sudden arrival of something beyond ourselves.
Poetry is a gift from creation to recitation. Something new is shared each time the words are uncovered and uttered, a new life born with each new reading.
So here are a few poems, my Christmas gift to you, maybe just maybe, you’ll discover in these words a gift that keeps on giving.
-Ryan
FIELD NOTES #25 It happens all at once: the snow settles in and the evening breeze rolls across the moonlit walk—cold breath like outstretched hands grasping at the night sky, and all of us here, braving the storm— tender words like firelight to keep us nice and warm. 𑁍𑁍𑁍 To tarry. To walk as if on angels wings. To sit in silence and feel the breeze, wasting time for silence sake. There in that crevice between holy and unaware you find the strength to keep on going: god is found in plodding through. 𑁍𑁍𑁍 I took the old road, passing through rows of shattered shrines, and lay my head between the stones of saints still begging for god's forgotten time: Give us just a minute. We promise to be quick. You'll find a real prayer on a set of somber lips.