Contents

Foreword

The Practice of Connection

Danusha Laméris, Small Kindnesses

Naomi Shihab Nye, Red Brocade

Shari Altman, Worry Stone for My Grandfather

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Kindness

Reflective Pause: The Soil That Is You

Kai Coggin, Into Wildflower Into Field

Laura Budofsky Wisniewski, A Beginner’s Guide To Gardening Alone

Heather Lanier, The Heartbeat of My Unborn Child

Mary Elder Jacobsen, Sponge Bath

Laura Grace Weldon, Most Important Word

James Crews, Only Love

David Van Houten, Breathe

January Gill O’Neil, Elation

Tricia Knoll, My Daughter Meets My White Pine

Julie Cadwallader Staub, Turning

Ingrid Goff-Maidoff, Peace Came Today

Kim Stafford, A Chair by the Creek

Danny Dover, Floodwood Pond

Ted Kooser, Filling the Candles

Mary Ray Goehring, Pinch Pot

Margaret Hasse, Clothing

Angela Narciso Torres, Chore

Reflective Pause: The Sacred Everyday

Twyla M. Hansen, Trying to Pray

Joy Harjo, For Keeps

Barbara Crooker, Sustenance

Ruth Arnison, Twenty Years of Longing

Danusha Laméris, The Heart Is Not

Laura Foley, Learning by Heart

Jacqueline Jules, Billowing Overhead

Penny Harter, Two Meteors

Tom Hennen, Made Visible

Cornelius Eady, A Small Moment

Zoe Higgins, Ode

Donna Hilbert, Credo

James Crews, Self-Care

Reflective Pause: Reassembling the Parts

January Gill O’Neil, Sunday

Laura Grace Weldon, Thursday Morning

Joy Gaines-Friedler, Touch

Heather Swan, On Lightness

José A. Alcantara, Divorce

Susan Moorhead, Shift

Tracy K. Smith, Song

Mark Nepo, Drinking There

Susan Musgrave, More than Seeing

Julia Fehrenbacher, The Most Important Thing

Julia Alvarez, Vain Doubts

Molly Fisk, Before I gained all this weight

Ross Gay, Thank You

Lorna Crozier, Small Lesson

Leah Naomi Green, The Age of Affection

Barbara Crooker, Forsythia

Karen Craigo, Last Scraps of Color in Missouri

Ted Kooser, It Doesn’t Take Much

Reflective Pause: Part of It All Again

Ellen Bass, The Thing Is

James Crews, Self-Compassion

Kelli Russell Agodon, Praise

Dorianne Laux, Joy

Jack Ridl, Take Love for Granted

Terri Kirby Erickson, Free Breakfast

Annie Lighthart, Passenger

Christine Stewart-Nuñez, Site Planning

Laura Foley, A Perfect Arc

Michael Simms, The Summer You Learned to Swim

James Crews, The Pool

Joyce Sutphen, Carrying Water to the Field

David Romtvedt, At the Creek

Reflective Pause: Would That Be Heaven?

Michael Kleber-Diggs, Coniferous Fathers

Zeina Azzam, My Father’s Hands

Li-Young Lee, Early in the Morning

Terri Kirby Erickson, Night Talks

Julia Alvarez, Love Portions

Kate Duignan, Grandmother

Todd Davis, Heliotropic

Marjorie Saiser, Everybody in the Same House

Lahab Assef Al-Jundi, Hot Tea

Gregory Orr, Morning Song

Annie Lighthart, How to Wake

Alice Wolf Gilborn, Wake Up

Alberto Ríos, Dawn Callers

Reflective Pause: A Welcoming World

Susan Moorhead, First Light

Faith Shearin, My Mother’s Van

Ada Limón, The Raincoat

Marjorie Saiser, I Save My Love

Lailah Dainin Shima, In Praise of Dirty Socks

Carolee Bennett, Exactly 299,792,458 Meters Per Second

Kimberly Blaeser, About Standing (in Kinship)

Rebecca Foust, Kinship of Flesh

Chana Bloch, The Joins

Heather Swan, Bowl

Reflective Pause: Where Beauty Is Honed

Natasha Trethewey, Housekeeping

Ted Kooser, Round Robin Letter

Sally Bliumis-Dunn, Mailman

Joseph Millar, Telephone Repairman

David Graham, The News of Love

Linda Hogan, Arctic Night, Lights Across the Sky

Alicia Ostriker, The Dogs at Live Oak Beach, Santa Cruz

Nancy Gordon, Rescue Dog

Dan Butler, New York Downpour

Richard Jones, After Work

Andrea Potos, Abundance to Share with the Birds

Fady Joudah, Mimesis

Rudy Francisco, Mercy

Naomi Shihab Nye, Kindness

Christine Kitano, For the Korean Grandmother on Sunset Boulevard

Reflective Pause: So You Are Here

Paula Gordon Lepp, Gas Station Communion

Annie Lighthart, A Great Wild Goodness

Ellen Rowland, No Small Thing

Jane Hirshfield, I Would Like

Peter Pereira, A Pot of Red Lentils

William Stafford, You Reading This, Be Ready

Connie Wanek, Come In!

Susan Rich, Still Life with Ladder

Alison Luterman, Braiding His Hair

Judith Sornberger, Love in Our Sixties

Susan Rothbard, That New

Susan Zimmerman, Get Close

David Axelrod, The Innermost Chamber of My Home Is Yours

Dave Baldwin, Summer Romance

Anya Silver, Late Summer

Judith Sornberger, Assisted Living

Patricia McKernon Runkle, When You Meet Someone Deep In Grief

Reflective Pause: Here to Listen

Megan Buchanan, Dream Visitation

Phyllis Cole-Dai, Ladder

Michelle Mandolia, The Thing She Loves Most

Marjorie Saiser, Last Day of Kindergarten

Gillian Wegener, Juvie Kid

Emilie Lygren, Make Believe

Brad Aaron Modlin, What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade

Reflective Pause: What You Missed

Dorianne Laux, On the Back Porch

Suzanne Nussey, Lullaby for an Empty Nester

Michelle Wiegers, Moving

Marie Howe, Delivery

Ray Hudson, Unbreakable Clarities

Danusha Laméris, Insha’Allah

Andrea Potos, Where I Might Find Her

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The Question

Jacqueline Suskin, Future

Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion

Poet Biographies

Credits

Acknowledgments

Discover the Joy of Gratitude with More Books from Storey

Share Your Experience!