And it’s why, as soon as I learned that the top-level domain .ing exists--by visiting a website that ended with bless.ing--I purchased sarahsbless.ing and saraisbless.ing. And wished I’d purchased miriamsbless.ing as well. (If it’s available, I still might!) Because Abraham is to be a blessing to nations, to populations, to big things. I don’t know how to be a blessing to big things like that. But I can be a blessing in small things. I can give a smile to the lady working the drive-through window at Wendy’s. I can be kind to a friend... or a stranger. I can make K’s favorite supper or surprise her with cheesecake. I can talk quietly with the mourning dove in the tree, without insisting on aggressive eye contact. I can support my colleagues. I can be a blessing to the lives I touch.

And that, I believe, is Sarah’s blessing. Sarah is a blessing for small things. When we become Sarah’s blessing, we are a blessing to our own microcosm. Some may be intended for blessing nations, but most of us are not. Most of us have only a small world to serve. And when we live as a blessing in that world, then we are living as God wants us to.

How will you be a blessing today? How will you be Sarah?

I’m not really doing anything right now with sarahsbless.ing or saraisbless.ing. But more recently I’ve purchased MiriamsWisdom.com, and that will be the URL for this publication soon. Any links you have to hrollins.substack.com will still work.

On the strength of women
by Heather L. Rollins
April 27, 2025

They tell us women we are weak
They call us the fair ones
They tell us the world is cruel
They keep us home to keep us safe
They do not know this only 
	keeps the world safe from us.

They do not know us
We are not safe!
We are a danger and a risk to all
The world is not safe from women
The world is not safe 
	from daughters and mothers and wives.

You say you are not strong
I say you have not seen your strength
Nor have I seen mine 
They said I was weak
They labeled me fragile
They were wrong
The world is not safe from me, 
	the world is not safe from you.

I shout out that we women are strong
I say our strength is like water
I say our strength is like silence
They keep us home where we get stronger
They do not know that by this
	we grow into fearsome Mother Bear.

They do not know us
We are the Mighty River
We are erosion by Wind and by Time
We are the Voice of Accountability
We are whipping Weeping Willow 
The world is not safe
	from all the power of mighty women.

Sing a song of the strength of women!
Sing of the fierce fair ones!
Sing of kindness in the midst of cruelty!
Sing of the den of Mother Bear!
Sing of a world made safe
	by the mightiness of women!

Last week, in a study group, we talked about Rabbi Akiva, one of the most significant sages from our tradition. The text we discussed included the image of water dripping on a stone every day, gradually wearing it away. We discussed change, that sometimes change is a huge event, like lightning striking a mountain and setting off a rockslide, more often change is the dropping water, carving the rock over many years. It reminded me of this poem.

Some may say it takes strength to act, and this is true. I say it takes strength to refrain, to restrain, to act only a little. After all, I am only one water drop, and you are only one water drop. But together, we are a flood. Together we make holes in stones and carve the faces of mountains. We are women, and we are strong.

Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy
before the LORD.

You can imagine my delight at learning about the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat, called the new year of trees or the birthday of trees. We know trees can live for decades, even centuries. There are trees here in my home state of Virginia that are older than I am, much older! How lovely, to celebrate the birthday of these venerable giants! How wonderful, to reflect on the trees and their meaning, to wonder at their beauty, to be grateful for all the gifts they bring us!

In my studies this morning, I spent time in dissertation work and then I spent time learning Talmud. My dissertation research is in suicide, looking at regional hotspots and coldspots, and evaluating the natural features and human-built features in those regions. This morning I read from several articles that discuss greenspace and its importance in mental health, particularly in neighborhoods and areas that are economically deprived.

In the Talmud, I’ve started with Tractate Megillah, since it’s almost Purim. And hey - I’ve almost finished the first (side of the first) page, so maybe I’ll get all the way through by Purim 5687! And in one of the sidebars, I encountered the name Rav Shmuel bar Yitzhak, who was an important rabbi living in the 4th century CE. It turns out Rabbi Samuel was also connected with trees. From his wikipedia page:

He was accustomed to entertain the bride and groom at weddings by dancing before them with myrtle-branches. Some rabbis, including Rabbi Zeira, considered this to be embarrassingly frivolous for someone of Samuel’s stature. But according to tradition, his conduct received Divine approval: When he died, a bath kol announced that “Rav Samuel bar Rav Yitzchak, the man who did kindness, has died”; at his funeral, fire descended from heaven in the form of myrtle-poles to separate the mourners from his body;[7] and all the trees of the Land of Israel were uprooted, indicating that they had missed the chance to be taken by Samuel for his wedding-dances.

So it isn’t even just trees, but trees and fun and kindness. And Hashem loved this so much that God spoke from the heavens, decorated his funeral with tree branches, and let all the trees in Israel mourn his loss.

Now I am reflecting on trees and kindness and love… and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and parks and suicide… and my thoughts haven’t integrated into one synthesis yet, but I’m sure they will.

In last week’s Torah reading, Terumah, God commands that the ark—yes, the Ark of the Covenant from Indiana Jones—be made of precious materials, gold and silver and the finest cloths and wood. During my study group discussion last weekend, it struck me that there is no particular value for God in gold and silver and wood. God made those, and God can make them whenever God wants to! No, what has value for God is us. Life.

How awful must it be for God to watch us put gold and silver and fine fabrics above life, above each other? What does it mean that I live in a comfortable apartment with lovely green landscaping and trees outside my window, while so many grow up in neighborhoods that barely have grass, much less trees? That children living in “the projects” have so much higher risk of dying by suicide than my comfortable, suburban children had?

Trees and neighborhoods and kindness and parks and suicide and love. It’s all tangled up for me right now. While I work on puzzling out what I feel and think here, I hope that you’ll look around for a Rabbi Samuel in your life. He might not dance with tree branches, but I bet here’s there, ready to lighten your burden a little and make you smile.

You are light.
You are song.
You are flame.
You are prayer.

Burn!

This summer I’m participating in a workshop on leading davening, or Jewish prayer. This means, of course, studying Jewish prayer. I missed our session last week and just finished watching the recording, which filled me with prayer and song and fire.

Shine! Sing! Burn!

Pray!

In 2025, I’ve doubled 25 years, and then some. I have a diagnosis of Type II bipolar disorder, and I’ve had several more periods of depression and dysphoria. I’ve spent years devoted to Christianity, in the Episcopal Church, and I’ve spent years unable to walk with the Church. In the last year, I’ve actually begun a formal conversion to Judaism. As a mystic, I’ve had some very brief experiences where for the barest instant I could apprehend God clearly. But more than 99% of the time, it was the frosted glass.

Subscribe now

Before I show you the text of the poem, I want to fill you in on an artistic decision I made when preparing this poem for the substack. When I wrote this in 1997, my sense of God was very male. I hadn’t really encountered the divine feminine, so my experience of God was The Remote King Up In The Sky. As a result, I used masculine pronouns. We know that God is not a physical, biological man any more than God is any other sort of physical, biological human, and these days I use a very different approach to name and refer to God. I didn’t see a good way to change the masculine pronouns without wrecking the rhythm and musical line of the poem, so I decided to leave them in place. We can call them yet one more misapprehension I had of God. :)

Where is God?

an original poem by Heather L. Rollins, written September 12, 1997

Where is God?
Through frosted glass
I cannot see
the glory of his face
but only hints
of blurry shadows
hidden from
my seeking eyes.

Where is God?
For though I press
my fingers to
the whitened pane,
I can not feel
his touch meet mine;
I do not sense
his presence near me.

Where is God?
I listen closely
with my ear
held to the door.
His voice eludes me;
muffled whispers
murmur at me,
nothing more.

Where is God?
I cannot smell
nor taste his presence,
do not know if he is near me.
Does he love me?
Are there angels,
saints who intercede?

Where is God?
I want to see him,
touch him, hear
his holy voice
within my soul.
I need him
to make me complete,
to make me feel alive.

Where is God?
I do not understand
why he must
hide from me.
Where is God?
Please give me peace
and love and hope
and comforting.

No? Maybe it’s just me. But if you recognize yourself in this at all, then you might find yourself in Hurt Feelings Report, which is about exactly that sort of rumination. It’s fun to exaggerate the ruminating, to dwell in it and find the ridiculousness living there… and to find the tiny miracle that lives at the heart of all things.

I told you “That won’t hurt my feelings,” and I probably even believed it just then,
but this was untrue, and I thought you should know it.
My feelings will be hurt, and I’ll cherish this pain.
I will lie awake at night rolling this feeling through my thoughts,
holding it close to my chest and loving it obsessively.
I will poke at every wound and treasure the sweet ache.
I’ll pick at the scabs until the blood runs.
I will find every bruise and admire the colors:
Who knew that hurt feelings could look so amazing?
It may not be rational to store up and save up hurt feelings like this,
but I’ve never claimed to be rational, my friend.
Every bump, bruise, and fracture is proof I’m alive,
telling my story, a map of the skin of my heart.
When I told you it won’t hurt my feelings,
instead you should know that I’ll ponder and cherish the hurt in my heart
and never let it go
and never let you go.

The title comes from my boss, who likes to pretend that he’s a complete grump, though sometimes you can catch a glimpse at the marshmallow center hidden deep in his core. When he has to make a decision that he expects to be unpopular, he might say, “Well, today we have to do this thing. You can all file hurt feelings reports tomorrow.” As I wrote this poem in February 2023, I knew that its title would have to come from this line, and so Hurt Feelings Report became a poem.

Have you ever sought out the tiny miracle that lives at the heart of something painful, or even something silly? What was that discovery like? Was love living there? It’s my theory that the tiny miracle that lives at the heart of all things is love.

Listen!

by Heather L. Rollins, February 2, 2025

Listen!
Listen up. This is your God talking.
Listen to me.
I am the Source of all.
I breathe life into you every day
when I wake you from your sleep.
I love you.

Listen!
It’s about love.
I love you.
I hope you love me.
I will never force you.
It’s not love unless it’s a choice made in freedom,
and it is your choice.
Love is your choice.

Listen! 
If you choose love,
then put your whole self into it.
Love is demanding,
and it asks everything you have
and everything that you are.
And the more love you pour out,
the more love I give you:
a flood of love too large to be contained,
abundant, extravagant, powerful.
Everything is about love.

Listen!
I know you can forget love
with the bustle of your life.
You must remind yourself:
	I am the God you chose,
	and I love you,
and I will give you all you need.
Remind yourself in the morning and in the evening: it’s about love;
tell your children and tell each other: it’s about love.
Remind yourself at home,
and remind yourself wherever you go: it’s all about love.
Put reminders in front of your eyes,
even write them on your hands: love, love, love.
Remind yourself about love when you arrive home,
and take love with you when you go out.

Listen!
It’s about love.
I need you to love each other.
I know you are forgetful,
and you’re stubborn, even stiff-necked.
The answer is always love.
	Hungry? Love them. Feed them.
	Naked? Love them. Clothe them.
	Grieving? Love them. Console them.
	Ailing? Love them. Heal them.
	Fallen? Love them. Uplift them.
	Lonely? Love them. Be with them.
	Imprisoned? Love them. Visit them. Free them.
	Ignored? Love them. See them.
	Injustice? Love them. Speak out.
	Oppression? Love them. Fight it.
Love them. Love them. Love them.
Every day, wherever you are,
the answer is always love.

Listen!
It’s about love.
It was always about love.
It will always be about love.
The answer is always love.
Listen!

Even on the far side of the hill, over 50, I find this nonsense still chasing me. If I haven’t been A Perfect Young Lady, modest and demure even while achieving the highest performance and also smiling while I do it—if I haven’t made you feel warm and welcome and wanted and happy—if I haven’t succeeded in earning your esteem—then I have failed. It sounds ridiculous that way, doesn’t it? But feelings are not rational, so here we are.

Maybe after you’ve listened to this poem, you might call someone or text them and tell them you love them even when they make mistakes and don’t wash their hair and begrudge the effort. Because truly, the well of love is bottomless.

Love Lesson
by Heather L. Rollins, January 8, 2025

I learned 
	early that 
	the path 
	to love 
	is performance.

The coin 
	to buy love 
	is doing 
	a good job
	and smiling 
	while you do it
	And doing it
	better
	than I 
	ever
	did it before

I was 
	a greedy 
	wee thing
I wanted 
	all 
	the love 
	I could get

Everyone I met,
	they had to 
	love me
	like me
	feel happy
	to see me
	stay with me
	take care
	of me


I say this
	as if it
	weren’t 
	still true
	even though
	the well of love
	is bottomless.

This poem embraces the dark, hidden, smelly things that are all part of Creation. God may be in the majestic mountains, the soaring eagles, and the graceful antelope. God is also in the microbes, the buzzards, the maggots, and the mushrooms. So here’s to the God who breathes life into dying things, every single day.

A response to parashah Tetzaveh

O god of deep and hidden things
O god of mushrooms, moss, and ferns
O god who breathes with winter's sighs
Show us how to find you.

O god of still and silent things
O god of seeps and soaks and stones
O god whose bones are mountains, trees
Teach us how to hear you.

O god of dark and hidden things
O god of compost, mold, and rot
O god who brings dead things to life
	Sing to us and wake us.

O god of peat and god of worms
O god of smelly, funky things
O god whose song is love unknown
	Take our hand and guide us.

It’s a new day, Adonai, and I sing praises to you.
It’s a new day, Holy One, and the whole earth praises you.

The grass damp with dew 		        sings your praises
The fuzzy caterpillar creeping		sings your praises
The bloom of the dawn sky		sings your praises

The crocuses welcoming spring	sing your praises
The leaf-buds on the mighty oak	sing your praises
The mourning dove with her coo	sings your praises

The cool air on my skin		        sings your praises
The riotous forsythia		        	sings your praises
The children running at play		sing your praises

Singing your praises,			the white fluffy cloud
Singing your praises,			the birthing crescent moon
Singing your praises,			every green holly leaf

Singing your praises,			the cars on the freeway
Singing your praises,			the stars in the night
Singing your praises,			the pollens and bumblebees

Singing your praises,			the brilliant blue sky
Singing your praises,			the electrons spinning
Singing your praises,			every beating, loving heart

It’s a new day, Hashem, and we sing praises to you.
It’s a brilliant new day, and every atom in the cosmos praises you.

Thank you for listening and reading. I’d love to know how this poem strikes you. Did it make your beating, loving heart sing praises? Let me know in the comments. Thanks!

This week’s Torah portion included the receiving of the ten commandments (the set we encounter first in scripture, because there are others and they are different), and it was this big, beautiful moment. But the portion for next week, titled Mishpatim (Exodus 21-24), is more difficult. It begins with laws about slavery, including girls and young women sold as bed slaves, and it ranges through a bunch of instruction about theft, intentional and unintentional harm to people and their belongings, and God’s plan to commit genocide so that the Israelites can have a home. So yeah. Difficult. Problematic. What the f**k.

As I build my practice of studying and engaging with Torah, I’m wanting to approach the reading a little differently each day. And today, on the eve of Shabbat, is the day for a creative or artistic response. I expected this to take the form of a poem, my typical artistic response, but instead it appears to be prose. As I started to reflect on why I don’t have a poem for this reading today, I realized that I wrote the poem yesterday, not realizing it was my response to Mishpatim. So here’s the prose. I’ll prepare the poem to post and share it with you soon

The poem I wrote yesterday ("God is big, and I am small.") may have been my real response, even if it wasn't created with that intention. But some of the elements are there... the mountain, the clouds, the vastness of God, the smallness of us. I was just thinking about those elements, the mountain, the cloud, the "consuming fire," when I realized this.

I admit that I've found this week's parashah difficult, problematic. I don't want to be okay with slavery, even if it is humane. I don't want to be okay with "eye for eye." I want a world that's better than this.

I'd prefer a world where cheeseburgers are okay but true repentance and forgiveness are present. Where the consuming fire lives inside each of us, burning away our selfishness, greed, violence, fear. Where the mountain is not held over our heads but we are invited with Moses to the top. Where we extend God's sapphire pavement, building it out from Sinai's peak a bit more in every generation, until everyone wants to live on it and work on it and be on it.

Like the highway of Isaiah, it is a place of holiness and the redeemed shall walk there. Where we all return with joy and live in joy and act in peace because our hearts are aligned with God's. I mean, yeah, we get stuff wrong and we mess stuff up. We may be aligned with God but that doesn't mean we are no longer human. But when we mess stuff up, we realize it and we own up to it and we trust that those around us will be generous with us, as generous as God is. Then the sapphire pavement will appear beneath us both, and we will know that Hashem is ours and we are Hashem's.

Meanwhile, something beautiful has been coming to life. My spiritual journey has been an interesting one, with its ebbs and flows and valleys and peaks. I’ve met people who have had at all times an abiding sense of Divinity, of the presence of the Holy One in their life. I’ve found myself gawping in near-disbelief at this, because I’ve had the periods of desolation, of separation from the Divine, and of consolation, of blissful union. I’ve had the dry, desert times and the calm, green, growing times, and the times of riotous beauty like springtime in a mountain meadow. I mean, I’d read my spiritual memoir, if it were a book.

Ten years ago, I was approaching a time I would need to walk apart from the church. It wasn’t the first time. I was encountering a leader who did one thing but taught another, a leader who spun the best possible tale of the circumstances he was recruiting someone into, a leader who claimed a participative leadership style and then dictated his position regardless of his council’s feedback. I met and counseled lovely, vulnerable, deeply faithful people who were treated shamefully by leadership. And I just couldn’t do it any more. I was a life-professed member of a dispersed religious order in the Episcopal Church and active in a number of ministries in my parish. And I had to stop. I couldn’t continue, not with the bitterness and mistrust in my heart.

In the last couple of years, something new has been growing. I’ve thought it was one thing, considered it might be another, and tried yet a different thing. One day last week in the shower, I thought of teething as a metaphor. The teeth form below a baby’s gums, and in the early stages they’re unnoticeable as they grow. Eventually, though, they start to push their way up, and as they do, they bring about soreness and fussiness, sometimes a rash or a fever. And then finally, the tooth erupts through the gum, and it doesn’t hurt any more. I’ve been teething for two years or so now. I look in the mirror and now I can see the tippy-top of my beautiful new tooth, and it isn’t what I expected at all.

I started this Substack to be sort of a log or list of my favorite poems and quotations, because I didn’t find any good apps or sites for this. The first poem I linked to here was by a Jewish poet. I’ve been reading and learning about Judaism, which has always been an interesting topic to me. I’ve listened to some podcasts and even joined an online group of people learning about the Talmud. I picked up a prayer book for my e-reader, and the language is so beautiful. I’ve remembered one of my favorite things to teach, back before: Jesus really only said one new thing, and everything else is already there in Judaism. One night, I saw a book titled “Who is a Jew?” And my mind said, “I am.”

Wait, what?

“I am. I am a Jew? Am I a Jew? I am Jewish?”

Huh. Not what I expected.

Oh, and it’s something my partner had considered herself, years ago. She said something amazing about the impoverished experience many Christians have of the Hebrew scriptures, and I can only agree. We’re exploring this new thing, separately and together, and it is beautiful.

If God invited you to a party

If God
Invited you to a party
and said,

'Everyone 
In the ballroom tonight
will be my special
Guest...'

Are you coming? Are you coming to the party? I mean, when Divinity holds a party, it is always An Event. The Event of the Season. The feasting, the drinking, the music, the dancing—it is the most beautiful, the most exquisite. You can rest in the beauty and just soak it in, or you can whirl around the floor with the other Special Guests. Either can be a path to joy, when you’re invited to God’s party.

How would you then treat them
When you
Arrived?

I have frequently used the statement that God has perfectly terrible taste in people. That is, the Divine One loves every single one of us more fully, more powerfully than we can know. You are Divinity’s favorite! And so am I! And so is everyone else we know! Isn’t that wonderful?

I have often used a prayer when someone particularly vile has died, especially an abuser of power and authority who has damaged vulnerable people, and especially someone who has a platform with a long reach. The prayer goes like this: I hope they are welcomed into heaven. And I hope they are completely surprised by who else is there. Because guess what! You are Divinity’s favorite! And so is everybody else who has lived before, who lives now, and who will live in the future! Gay people, straight people, white people, brown people, black people, neurodiverse people, neurotypical people, rich people, poor people, thin people, fat people, migrants and refugees, weird people, creepy people, sweet and beautiful people: every kind of people who can possibly exist. And so it is the deepest prayer of my heart that one day I will be welcomed into heaven, and I will be utterly surprised to see who all is there. And I will know to the very core of my being that this is where I belong. Hafez knows.

Indeed, indeed!

And I know
There is no one in this world

Who
Is not upon
His Jeweled Dance
Floor

poem by Hafez from All Poetry, translation credit not given

See? Hafez knows. We are all there at Divinity’s party, together. We don’t need sewing mice or fairy godparents or glass slippers: we are all invited to the ball.

So here is the thing for you today, and I hope you can hear it. If you can’t right now, that’s fine, too; maybe someday you will be able to.

You are the best beloved of God. You are beautiful and you are worthy. You are deserving of love and light and vitality. You are sacred. You are the only you who will ever live, and that you is a gift to the world, to everyone around you.

I hope to see you on the Jeweled Dance Floor, my friend. It will be The Event of the Season!

So we discussed plans for the day. Human Resources had talking points written up so that every manager would say the same things to their employee. The strategy was to talk with all of the affected people by about 11 or 11:30. We scheduled the call with my employee at 8:30am. I moved my team’s daily stand-up from 9am to 12 noon, which was a little rough for my team members in Europe. And the CEO was to speak at an all-hands meeting at 3pm.

Yesterday was supposed to be a vacation day for me. My quarters for school have a two-week break and I try to take a day or two off during those breaks. And for my day off, I would be laying off an employee, being there for my team, and being on the all-hands call so that I was seeing and hearing the same news as everyone else. Fun.

I had two people reporting to me as their manager, so after my call with the employee we laid off, I knew it was important to speak with my remaining direct report as well as with our scrum master. They had a one-on-one call scheduled for exactly this time, so that was convenient. The three of us sat with the suck, and every so often one of us would get a message on company chat or by text, asking what was going on this morning or learning about another person affected. We knew we were safe, but our hearts ached for everyone around us.

At noon we had our team call, and it was obvious that there were people missing. I covered the same talking points I had with my employee: this is what we’re doing and these are the business reasons and it’s awful and we’re going to miss our former colleagues both personally and in picking up some of their work. I tried to bring out some of the positive sides along with the negative, that this is what our young company needs to achieve our next goals, enabling us to get to profitability. I work for a startup, in an emerging industry that is still learning how to operate, so profitability is a major milestone not only for my company but in this industry.

We had smiles and laughter as well as our disappointment and sadness… and, to be honest, fear. What we didn’t know was that our fifth person was on the call with us and hadn’t been told yet. He dropped to take a call from a leader in the organization, and then rejoined our meeting to tell us that he was also included in the lay-off. We had a farewell with him that included gratitude and tears, and it might even have been really important for the team, who hadn’t been able to have any sort of farewell for the others who were let go.

Because it was (in theory) a vacation day, we went out for lunch. I even ordered a glass of wine, which may have been my second or third alcoholic drink in 2024. It was a glass-of-wine kind of day, though. After the all-hands call—which had to be brief because the CEO needed to board a plane for a trip home from a major partner’s HQ—our CTO held an “Ask Me Anything” call for everyone in our technology division, and this was an opportunity to learn more about our next steps and the strategy we’ll pursue. It was a smart thing to do, our CTO showing up for us as our leader.

And just after 4pm, I logged off from work to wrap up my vacation day. I felt tired. Tired and sad. There are conflicting feelings when you survive a lay-off, similar to the conflicting feelings when you survive a big crash or other traumatic event. You’re glad to still be alive, grieving for those you’ve lost, wondering what stroke of luck put you where you were, feeling guilty for surviving or feeling guilty for being glad to still be alive. Although I’d known something for a few weeks that something like this was coming, the 25 hours between my boss’s call Thursday afternoon and logging off yesterday were intense. I’m glad those hours are over, and I feel like I gave my best to my team. I hope I gave my best to my team. Because at these times, leaders give their best. (Dammit.)

Linda Sue Park writes books for children, including picture books. This poem describes how a book or a poem becomes balm to the heart, when we love it so much that, like a beloved stuffed animal, it stays with us and becomes part of us.

For someone to read a poem
again, and again, and then,

having lifted it from page
to brain—the easy part—

cradle it on the longer trek
from brain all the way to heart.

Linda Sue Park, "Wish" from Tap Dancing on the Roof. Copyright © 2007 by Linda Sue Park.
from Poetry Foundation

What poems (or picture books) have made the trek to your heart? It doesn’t have to be an entire poem; there might be only a couple of lines that have made it to your heart. And it doesn’t have to be anything terribly inspiring or healing: how many of us can recite part of Jabberwocky? After all, they say that laughter is powerful medicine. Who among us can’t recite at least part of Green Eggs and Ham?

Some of the poems that are (at least partially) written in my heart are Jabberwocky (“O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!”) and The Walrus and the Carpenter (“of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings”!), Kubla Khan (“for he on honey-dew hath fed and drunk the milk of Paradise”) by Coleridge, Psalm 4 (“I lie down in peace, at once I fall asleep, for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety”) and even Twelfth Night Act 2 Scene 3 (“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”). Because it was my daughter’s favorite, The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss (“Left foot, right foot, feet, feet, feet. Oh how many feet you meet!”): I can’t tell you how many times we read this together. I’m sure there are more that don’t come to mind immediately. There are so many amazing, beautiful poems around, and they don’t have to be hundreds of years old to become beloved.

My wish is that you have a poem that you’ve read again and again until it’s made the trek to your heart. And I also wish that maybe you’ll share one of these poems with a friend or loved one. You never know when someone needs a poem, and it’s always handy to carry one around in your heart.