I have been thinking about how poems are read in our communities. Friends ask me how do I find the poems I use for this project and I say I just keep my ears open. Sometimes at a dinner or in a yoga class a topic will spark and someone will recite a poem from memory. But more often, poems seem to be shared at weddings and funerals. I wish we offered them up in more settings.

My ocean worn bricks are listening. At a memorial today we have been sharing memories about our sculptor friend, John Daniel McCarty. He had an eye that recognized the weight of things. He made visual associations between scale and material that allowed us all to see with broader sensitivity and deeper connections. We shared a love of oysters from the Damariscotta River. I imagine the river stones are singing and the trees are leaning closer to hear us remember a sculptor and his love of place.

Rock Me Mercy

The river stones are listening
because we have something to say.
The trees lean closer today.
The singing in the electrical woods
has gone dumb. It looks like rain
because it is too warm to snow.
Guardian angels, wherever you’re hiding,
we know you can’t be everywhere at once.
Have you corralled all the pretty wild
horses? The memory of ants asleep
in daylilies, roses, holly, & larkspur.
The magpies gaze at us, still
waiting. River stones are listening.
But all we can say now is,
Mercy, please, rock me.

–Yusef Komunyakaa, “Rock Me, Mercy” from The Emperor of Water Clocks,
published by Farrar Straus and Giroux, Copyright © 2015 by Yusef Komunyakaa.