Invitation to virtual poetry reading with Raphael Block - Saturday, September 9

[Larry Robinson]

You are cordially invited to join us for a virtual poetry reading featuring Raphael Block
Saturday, September 9 from 10:00 to 10:30 AM
There is no need to pre-register; you can just click this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83342355802?pwd=SmphbE1rR093UUI4T1RXc2N6ZmlmZz09 <https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83342355802?pwd=SmphbE1rR093UUI4T1RXc2N6ZmlmZz09>







Raphael Block’s latest poetry book, The Dreams We Share, has just been published. He is the author of four other poetry collections, Songs from a Small Universe, Spangling Darkness, Strings of Shining Silence, and At This Table. Raphael produces the monthly Earth-Love Newsletter which can be viewed at raphaelblock.com <http://raphaelblock.com/> along with a National Geographic selected 5-minute documentary. Much of his work describes his relationship with the Earth and her minute wonders.


“Return again, return again . . .”
Title from a song of the Jewish New Year embodying Tshuvah, or returning to oneself

My soul is a field
that life tills and tends.
Perhaps rocks need to be broken,
or dips and holes need to be filled.
Perhaps sand, or seaweed, or humus added
before it can yield something 
lovely like a potato, maize, or a sunflower.

And, like a field, my soul longs to be sung to
while I water, compost, cover-crop, and putter.
For what am I born for if not to praise?

And the Earth will praise us, too,
even as she takes our bodies 
back into her arms. 
We are so intimate, 
why act as strangers?
Like an open hand, 
our secrets are all known.

During how much of each day can I drop
my false faces to be naked before you?

I count on you to raise me up 
when, like a child learning to walk,
I fall again and again and again.

Now, I sing to you,
Be alive in me—
a little more, a little more.

	- Raphael Block









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