Tenneson Woolf Poetry • Tenneson Woolf

October 4, 2023October 4, 2023

Flow In An Ordinary Day

So, morning is often a time when I write. I seek to move some of my inner insights to expressions and structures of words. I seek to connect what is personal into what is more widely shared. In the poem below, the insight I’m working with is that every day is both common and uncommon at the same time. And that it takes a commitment, and often a poetic heart, to keep inviting the integration of it all.

For inspiration.

Today is common,
like most every day.

It starts
with simple beginnings.

Coffee.
A wee bit of writing.
Breath.

And then,
into the lists of things that both fill and surprise a day.

But today is also uncommon,
unlike most other days.

Renewal
has found me.

An excited mind.
A horizon brought close.
A connected heart.

And then,
into much flow that refreshes.

October 2, 2023October 2, 2023

At 18 Days Old — Reflections on Meeting My Granddaughter

So, yes. Over the last five days I was able to go to New York City to meet my granddaughter for the first time. What a treat to hold her. To offer a bit of help to her parents, my daughter and son-in-law. What a treat to feel tenderness wash over and about. To feel my newly arrived grandfathering feet underneath me. What a treat to know life flowing in this way.

Prosed poetry is a goto form of reflection for me. So, on the plane from Newark, New Jersey to Salt Lake City, Utah, I found myself coaxed by a few words of sense-making and celebration.

At 18 days old
it isn’t words articulated that soothe.
Rather, a kind and gently offered hum carries it all.

At 18 days old
perhaps this little one is imprinting us as much as we are her.
To love, to kindness, and to inherent tenderness.

At 18 days old
I’m guessing she wishes us to catch her arriving soul.
To give her the tiniest of guided starts.

Yes. Grateful. Moved. In many of the stereotypical ways as a new grandparent. But I would also say, awakened beyond the poignancy of meeting a new granddaughter for the first time. Awakened to wishing loving, kind, and tender learning as human beings, in another kind of hum that also carries it all.

September 7, 2023September 7, 2023

Water Knows

It is the part of me that celebrates what is most simple, and what is most meaningful, that writes in simple phrases.

So as to guide myself. And to go well with others, in streams of wisdom. And kindness. And helpfulness. And overall life-giving ways.

The words below, for inspiration that calls out even more of what flows so naturally in the inner.

Be with what flows.
Trust that the waters nourish
asdgand replenish.

Kindness and joy
asdgare currents.

Water knows.

September 6, 2023September 6, 2023

We Humans, Seek

I’m glad for this image of cattails from a weekend walk. I appreciate the beauty, the standing tall. I appreciate the mix among many other greens.

And then, in the spirit of appreciating beauty, both seeking it and welcoming it to continue to embrace, I reflected through a few words.

For simplicity and for inspiration of the stories that we humans live, and that live us.

We humans,
we seek joy.

Be it with friends,
or in endeavors of work,
or in evolution that is community.

That much I have learned.

We humans,
we seek learning.

Be it in the lettings go,
or in the lettings come,
or in the mysteries that live beneath it all.

That much I have learned.

We humans,
we seek contribution.

Be it in the small immediacies of now,
or in the long, slow-baked arcs,
or in the timeless ways that life unfolds.

That much I continue to learn.