Vows to the Mystery
Think back to the very beginning of something you were excited about. Maybe you’d just gotten a great new job, or started dating someone you were really interested in. Or maybe it was a new…
Author: James A. Pearson
The Space Between Us
This is the poem I wrote for my wedding. I spent months on it. And on Saturday I finally got to see it do its work in the world when we used it to open…
The First Promise
This is a poem of permission. A lot of people wish they could push pause for a little while, but they’re afraid to show any uncertainty about the life they’ve constructed for themselves. They’re afraid…
Permission to Lose Interest
Looking up through the windshield atdark wings and a white headcrossing high above I-5. “Just a seagull,” I hear myself say—permission to lose interest, permission to close downthe aqueducts of wonder. How quickly I abandon…
When That Fire
The destroying fireis coming into the leaves again— oranges and deep reds gathering around the edges, preparing to consume whole trees, turn forests into boneyards. I remember when that fire came for me.
Nobody Knew
Nobody knewthe cherry treeswould bloom today.How quietly they must havewhispered together,huddled in thedeepest ends of their roots,as winter’s death creptdown their branches.But slowly— as slowly as Earthtilts her headback toward the Sun—a chorus grew, some…
It’s in Everything
It’s in everything, this dancingof something that’s more than just life.Look at the trees near the shore,how they shimmy and wave over the bright face of the Salish Sea. Meanwhile the waters rush in—mad for…
Learning to See the Invisible Realities
I remember the moment I realized that women experience a different reality than men. A friend in Uganda—a woman and fellow expat—was telling me what it was like to walk through a busy market by…
I will live in this world
I will live in this world. I will live in this world where the growing freedom of many provokes the hateful violence of a few. I will live in this world where bigotry must raise…
10 Thoughts On My Birthday
Yesterday I turned 34. I cashed in on my free Starbucks drink and wrote down some things I’m thinking as I enter my 35th year of life. Here are 10 of them: You can furnish a…