Poetry Friday, Week 29: Getting Ready for the Sealey and Reminded of the Fabulousness that is Naomi Shihab Nye

©Graphic by Amber Fleek

Jan at BookSeedStudio has the hosting duties this week and she's curated a variety of sources of where to submit poetry as well as introducing to a wonderful collection.

I'm about to leave for four days at the coast, a yearly event.  And yesterday morning I awoke to a post on FB by Naomi Shihab Nye thanking someone for the quote on their car:

"There’s a way not to be brokenthat takes brokenness to find it."
~Naomi Shihab Nye

I looked it up and found this poem: "Cinco de Mayo"

Cinco de Mayo By Naomi Shihab Nye
If this is your birthday and you are dead,
do we stay silent as the sheet
you died under? No. You always talked.
Here’s a thick white candle whispering.
Pour birdseed into feeders.
Speak up, speak up.
​
Tell me where they go, my friend said,
in the same pain. I touched her shoulder.
Here, right here. You’re closer than
you ever were — takes a while to know that.
Every scrap of DNA, he’s listening.
There’s a way not to be broken
that takes brokenness to find it.
​
Those two last lines.  And here's the kicker, today would have been the 75th birthday of my former husband who died five years ago,  As some of you know, I left over thirty years ago, and have written about him.  The universe guides us and yesterday, the poem was gifted to me.

I was fortunate to take a weeklong class with Naomi in 1989.  I will be visiting her books for the Sealey Challenge.
Here is Naomi, reading her poem fro her book, Transfer(2011) :

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The Sealey Challenge is a month-long challenge to read poetry and be in community with others.  I am going to do my best to immerse myself in the challenge. 

Are you participating?  I know that Marcie Flinchum Atkins is promoting and getting ready for it.

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