Poems to Carry in the Blood
A community writing project with Tara Penry
In the whirlwind of purging, packing, selling, and moving house, I forgot all about
’s irresistible community writing invitation to share a poem that we carry in our blood. I was all-in when she’d asked for suggestions last month for a student assignment—poems they might choose to memorize and then write about. I nominated ten of my favorites:“Annunciation” and “Prayer” by Marie Howe
“Widening Circles” by Rainer Maria Rilke
“The Way It Is” by William Stafford
“Lost” by David Wagoner
“I Know the Way You Can Get” by Hafiz
“Say Yes Quickly” by Rumi
“The Summer Day” and “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
“Prayer” by Joseph Bruchac
My bloodstream runs thick with these beauties. But not in an unhealthy, artery-hardening way. In the way that Tara means when she writes, “We are what we eat.”
Today, I’m choosing “Say Yes Quickly,” because it rescued me at a time of great searching. For a conference keynote, an environmental luminary delivered a vision so inspiring, I longed not only to live in that world, but to help create it. He ended his tallk with Rumi’s poem.
The next morning in a windowless hotel ballroom, this same luminary sat right next to me—at a 10-top in a room full of 10-tops. I watched myself turn to him and say, “I felt like that poem was written for me.” A week later, this book arrived in the mail along with a card that’s still tucked inside. Here's to feeling chosen—by a poem and a mentor—at a time when I needed it most.
Say yes quickly
Forget your life. Say God is Great. Get up.
You think you know what time it is. It’s time to pray.
You’ve carved so many little figurines, too many.
Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar.
Reach your long hand out to another door, beyond where
You go on the street, the street
where everyone says, “How are you?”
and no one says How aren’t you?
Tomorrow you’ll see what you’ve broken and torn tonight,
thrashing in the dark. Inside you
there’s an artist you don’t know about.
He’s not interested in how things look different in moonlight.
If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you’re causing terrible damage.
If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love,
you’re helping people you don’t know
and have never seen.
Is what I say true? Say yes quickly,
if you know, if you’ve known it
from before the beginning of the universe.
~ From Open Secret: Versions of Rumi, by Joyne Moyne and Coleman Barks
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Even if this had taken another week, it would be worth waiting for. You gave me a chill when the book arrived and a watery-eye-thing by the end of the poem. When a post speaks twice to a body like that, the only sensible thing to do is listen again.
I hope your move is going well enough. Glad you made it to the poetry jamboree with this treasure!
Beautiful reading, Julie.
And thank you for the list of poems. Because I love those I know, I know I'll love those new to me.
Best on the house moving.