The problem with being full of yourself is that you cannot fill up with much else.

My Grandmother 🇵🇸 "Mrs Rabiha Dajani, an eccentric, opinionated and imperious character in her eighties who was the nearest thing I knew of a Palestinian Grande Dame" ‪https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/04/letter-to-my-departed-palestinian-grandmother/‬ #Palestine‬ #writingcommunity

‘I read mystical poetry like other people sneak desserts. In the kitchen late at night, hovering over the book as if it were chocolate mousse.’ — Lee Weissman

“Keep yourself busy in remembering your faults, so that you have no time to remember the faults of others” — Sufyaan Ath-Thawri

… create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently, until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize and greet it. Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of rescue. — Martha Postlethwaite

#Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa for @reuters.com

A reminder …

Travel Tickets By Samih al-Qasim The day I'm killed, my killer, rifling through my pockets, will find travel tickets: One to peace, one to the fields and the rain, and one to the conscience of humankind ... take and use the tickets. Please I beg you to go traveling. (Translated by A.Z. Foreman)

"those who have eyes to see, let them see"

Remarkable thing, attention. Once we look up and around, noticing the world of #birds , overnight, it seems, the asphalt city is transformed into wings and #song.

Junior nodding off and sleep-pecking

All the strings of Life are attached.

Israel’s idea of ceasefire: You Cease We Fire.. — @Lucazade-x

For the love of birds

Come through, DC! Liberties subscribers are invited to join us this Saturday, April 18, for a read-through of Chekhov's The Seagull luma.com/e4finjqj

😭 Moved to tears by these 2 blessed visionaries: 🇵🇸 Aziz Abu Sarah @azizabusarah.bsky.social  🇮🇱 Maoz Inon @maozinon.bsky.social The Future Is Peace 🕊️ youtu.be/DU45iLNBwro #booksky #Palesti̇ne #Israel @weeklyshowpodcast.bsky.social

I think about the children of Gaza. About how they play "funeral" instead of house. About the barely 4ft baby girls screaming in armed IDF soldiers faces knowing it could be their last breath. I've been screaming save Palestine for nearly 20 years... I wish I had been louder.

"Laughter is the habitual crying of the wise." — Magdalena Samozwaniec

“I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.” —W. H. Auden

As you return home, to your home, think of others (do not forget the people of the camps). — Mahmoud Darwish, "Think of Others" youtube.com/shorts/BnVwe... #Palestine #poetry #Gaza #news #Iran #Israel #Lebanon

Glad to have a new piece in the Spring-Summer issue of Salmagundi magazine: “On Aphorism.” It begins with James Geary’s new anthology and opens into a more personal reflection on my three-decade journey with #aphorisms: salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/186... #WritingCommunity #poetry

'Aphorisms respect the wisdom of silence by disturbing it, briefly.' www.plough.com/en/topics/cu... @plough.bsky.social

As you return home, to your home, think of others (do not forget the people of the camps). — Mahmoud Darwish, "Think of Others" youtube.com/shorts/BnVwe... #Palestine #poetry #Gaza #news #Iran #Israel #Lebanon

Some words are deeper than others... youtube.com/shorts/CYt3a... #poetry

In the spirit of #PoetryMonth, a few free offerings: ✨ A poetic affirmation (pictured) 📝 An excerpt from my new poem + a prompt 📚 April's reccomended reading list Plus: Details of my forthcoming virtual workshop (April 26) richard-blanco.com/workshops/

Israel’s idea of ceasefire: You Cease We Fire.. — @Lucazade-x

Read! In the name of your Lord who created: He created man from a clinging form. Read! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One who taught by [means of] the pen, who taught man what he did not know. #Quran 96:1-5

So truly where there is hardship there is also ease; truly where there is hardship there is also ease. #Quran 94:5-7

A fraction of a poem's power resides in words, the rest is the spirit that swims through them.

The bridal veil of Spring

#Journalism Is Not a Crime A lifetime ago, when I worked at UNESCO’s Cairo office, journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin’s father, was my boss. In the years since, I have come to know Ahmed a little through correspondence and have followed his work with admiration. #FreeAhmed #Kuwait #news

For the love of #birds

An unhealthy, unhealed culture...

'Your medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.' — Hazrat Ali (Sufi)

'A crisis of faith is the only crisis there is. We're always having it... We mistake it for other things... my job, my marriage... You can't fix your life if the ground of your being is unsure.' —Christian Wiman

'Aphorisms respect the wisdom of silence by disturbing it, briefly.' www.plough.com/en/topics/cu... @plough.bsky.social

Glad to have a new piece in the Spring-Summer issue of Salmagundi magazine: “On Aphorism.” It begins with James Geary’s new anthology and opens into a more personal reflection on my three-decade journey with #aphorisms: salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/186... #WritingCommunity #poetry

If the final hour arrives...

We live in a perpetually burning building...

Strange...

AI EXPERIMENT 🏪 AI agent hires humans #AI agent named Luna into a real retail space with a $100K budget and a credit card, with the AI creating a boutique, hiring workers, and managing the shop as what may be the world's first AI employer: andonlabs.com/blog/andon-m... #tech #news

Come through, DC! Liberties subscribers are invited to join us this Saturday, April 18, for a read-through of Chekhov's The Seagull luma.com/e4finjqj

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac,  God of Jacob”—  not of philosophers and scholars.  Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace.” — Pascal Sewn Close to the Heart 🔥 libertiesjournal.com/articles/sew... @readliberties.bsky.social

Egon Schiele, Self Portrait #art

If the world were a flower, I would like to be a bee. Pir Sultan Abdel (1480-1550) اذا كان ا لعالم زهرة، اريد ان أكون نحلة - سلطان عبدل ـ القرن السادس عشر Si le monde était fleur, je voudrais être abeille. #art #quote #Islam

Anyone preparing himself for #poetry must take a pounding like his paper's pulp. — Shafi'ā "Asar", 1700s, #Iran

‘I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their #poetry, but a kind of instinct or #inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.’ #Socrates

"The prophet and the poet are the kernel: others the shell..." Nizami

I work in a store selling tears… — Dunya Mikhail youtu.be/KRBFEYJbB4g #poetry #Iran #Lebanon #Beirut #Gaza #Palesti̇ne #news

Maryland in Spring 🌸 #nature #photography