In Verses & Song

This November, I‘m sharing the third season of my podcast, Poetry for Peace . This season shares verses written and published during our journey to a cure at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. While I always enjoy sharing my poetry with readers and listeners, my goal for Season 3 of Poetry for Peace is specific: to help raise funds for pediatric cancer research, and in support of children and families suffering from a pediatric cancer diagnosis. If my verses can move even a few people to donate — they were well worth sharing aloud. Every child and teen diagnosed with cancer, and their families, deserve the chance to fight critical illness together and LIVE — and donations help make that future possible. You can listen to Poetry for Peace, Season 3: Journey to a Cure on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google Podcasts & more. For a full listing of platforms & episodes, visit: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/poetryforpeace For a link to the show on Spotify, see below:     

In the woods, nature is given to itself — creatures live and die and are born anew. Leaves turn colors, fall and gather on the ground. The earth receives them, makes more from them — nothing is wasted. Everything is surrounded with life sustaining oxygen from the trees, songs from the birds, light from the sun. There is a constancy that sinks in me, an openness that breathes, beating a pattern of acceptance. A promise of unconditional love. An ease that settles into my skin, invites me to stay. Why does humanity struggle with this, the very essence of being wholly and unconditionally ourselves? The sun finds so many ways through these trees, so many dappled patterns — stippled shadows of life on tree bark, on green and gold leaves, on my notebook, on my skin. There is always light, if we look for it. Hope if we reach for it, acceptance if we are willing to give it, understanding if we learn — and love if we open our hearts, our minds — breathe out the world breathe in the earth breathe