Sometimes a Dream Comes True

With not a little hope and daring, I called this my Year of Dreams. Included in the list of wishes: meet poet Sam Hazo.

Well, sometimes a dream comes true. While at the Jubilee conference I met Sam over at Carlow University, where he leads the International Poetry Forum (pic of Carlow below). Stay tuned for more from Sam this Friday in Random Acts of Poetry at High Calling Blogs. Also, Marcus Goodyear has promised to share my premiere [cough, cough] video-wielding skills by posting our interview of Hazo [sometime soon, right MG?]







I just had to love a conference that fed one of my other dreams (to become a real-live cello player), by including string instruments in the hip-hoppin', jazz tappin', rock and rollin' praise bands. I could not help but catch the enthusiasm of the cello player as she swooped her bow up to the ballroom ceiling (after she played the most astonishing solo and I was reminded that I'm not a real-live cello player yet.)

Overall, there really is too much to tell. I met so many awesome people, including the guy at the top of this post, sitting there with his bible (yup, it was about 6 inches thick... I thought he'd stolen an illuminated manuscript from an old monastery or something : ) . An English major, dating an Art Therapy major, Chris exemplified the deep-heartedness and warmth of the students at Jubilee. I met people who are making a difference in big and little ways. Stay tuned for more on that too, when I invite you to a special kind of House Party over at High Calling Blogs next week.





I cannot choose what impacted me most. The art, the stories, the music and poetry— all of it spoke to hidden places in my heart. Maybe this is best expressed by the series below, by artist Dayton Castleman. He shared how he came to create the Red Pipe in Prison art installment after spending time in the prison, letting the oppressiveness of the setting eat into him. "I began to see the spaces, the holes, the escape routes," he said. And thus was born the network of red pipes— dreams of freedom leaking out of prison windows, walls, corridors.

We all have dreams. Maybe that's what I remembered most while at Jubilee. For some of us, it's time to begin making them come true. For others, it's time to help a dreamer who has been ushered away by society... time to bring in a pipe and help him paint it red, place it near the escape routes, ride it out to the sky.











Jubilee photos by L.L. Barkat. Other awesome people I met or reconnected with: Alissa Wilkinson, Andy Crouch, Lauren Winner, Jonathan Walton, Byron Borger, Derek Melleby, Jeff Shinabarger, Sam Van Eman, Larry Bourgeois, Brian Moss, Michael Stevens, Jason Panella, Karen Sloan, and Scott Calgaro

Of Golden Leaves and a Crescent Moon

Full days. Where to begin?

A solitary train ride, as sun set over Hudson waters... rays slant, blushing on blue, then fading to charcoal as night descended. Walking alone through New York city streets, buildings rising mammoth, imposing, making me feel my smallness, taste it like strong tea brisk in my mouth.

Or the lone tree on U.N. Way still dressed in golden leaves that flipped like pennies in a child's hands. I stopped to take it in, there on the rushing streets of the city that never sleeps. On my way to hear Os Guinness at the Roosevelt. The Roosevelt, decked for the holidays, in greens and reds, sparkling lights, jazz music greeting me at the door. Chatter and velvet and the smell of cinnamon and vodka in the air.

Maybe I should speak of the crescent moon over the East River, exuding gentility and power like the grandfatherly poet Samuel Hazo who I heard Tuesday night. Steady and enduring as that crescent moon, he recited straight from memory for over an hour. Recited his own deep verse and a little Shakespeare, in an old Catholic church of stone and wood and flickering candles. Verse to make me laugh and cry. And he asked...

... can you think of one thing someone has said today or this week... one thing that you will never forget... if you can't, you must question your attention to the poetic that is all around you, waiting to be heard, sniffed, tasted...

In silent answer, the flavor of grapes came sweet in my mouth. Katie's grapes. Little three-year-old Katie, filching Grandpa's grapes from the Thanksgiving basket. The basket that had sat empty on that holiday, waiting for each of us to put our piece of fruit in it. Fruit we silently assigned a joy and a sorrow that we brought to this year's table. Grandpa's fruit: grapes. But who knows his joy and sorrow?

Mommy! my youngest had cried, Katie's eating Grandpa's joy and sorrow!

This is the line I won't forget. Like night falling on the Hudson, and a solitary train ride, and the golden penny tree, and the moon, the crescent moon, shining alone, seemingly small against the giant of New York City. The poetry of life, come to visit. Come knocking, asking, will you take me in?


Basket and Fruit photo by Saima Barkat. Used with permission.

POETRY FRIDAY:

Ann's Waiting Hope
High Calling's Random Acts of Poetry: Christmas Lament
LL's Midnight's Gift
Erica's Waiting Sky
Marcus's Where We Live