Poems can be a doorway into another world. Each one, a simple arrangement of otherwise ordinary words, that together evoke presence, wonder, possibility. So here is an invitation to pause, let the words wash over you and glimpse the world they offer you…
It’s a growing collection, and we’d love to hear which ones resonate with you and why, and find out about your favourites. Here is an index of our Words of Wonder.
my grandsons spinning in their joy universe keep them turning turning black blurs against the window of the world for they are beautiful and there is trouble coming round and round and round by Lucille Clifton One moment, captured here in a photograph that in my imagination the poet Lucille Clifton (1936 – 2010)…
don’t let your funeral be the first time people ever hear your true story ~ spoil the eulogy by wearing your epic adventure like it’s a fluorescent ball gown every single day of your existence your life is a one-hit wonder that will never be played again in the history of everything so don’t hide…
Imagine my surprise, sitting a full hour in silent and irremediable fear in the world to find the body forgetting its own fear the instant it opened and placed its unassuming hands on life’s enduring pain and the world for one moment closed its terrifying eyes in gratitude saying, “This is my body, I am…
If you want a safer world, save something, anything. If you want a loving world, love someone, anyone. If you want a peaceful world, make peace somewhere, anywhere. If you want a better world, be better in your world. Ripples reach, to be is to teach. If you wish to make a difference, practice what…
You have looked at so many doors with longing, wondering if your life lay on the other side…
Let no one keep you from your journey, no rabbi or priest, no mother who wants you to dig for treasures…
If the water were clear enough, if the water were still, but the water is not clear, the water is not still, you would see yourself, slipped out of your skin, nosing upstream, slapping, thrashing, tumbling over the rocks till you paint them with your belly’s blood: Finned Ego, yard of muscle that coils, uncoils.…
Whatever it was it was all leading up to didn’t happen. Or did, but smaller. Not the page of the New Yorker memorialized behind glass with my name at the end of the poem. Or the microphone, cold friend in my hand, the sea of upturned faces, my voice cast out— changing everything. Maybe there…
Loving yourself is like feeding a clear bird no one else can see. You must be still and offer your palmful of secrets like delicate seed. As she eats your secrets no longer secret she glows and you lighten and her voice which only you can hear is your voice bereft of plans. And the…