Poems
The poems we use for the Lectio Divina portion of our Centering Prayer practice are intentionally curated for inclusivity–most of the poets do not identify as White, dominant-culture, or heteronormative. Welcome, welcome, welcome!
This list is sorted by the order in which we used the poems, the most recent at the top.
Touching and Being Touched by Jenny George
Baptism by Dirt by Frank X. Walker
Memory Poem by Marlanda Dekine
Ghazal, After Ferguson by Yusef Komunyakaa
Fog by Amy Clampitt
At Last the New Arriving by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Kiss by Ellen Bass
The Brainfever Bird, Confused by Seasons by Tishani Doshi
Being and Time by Shangyang Fang
How the Worst Day of My Life Became the Best by Andrea Gibson
Chapter 44 from Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, translated by Derek Lin
Startlement, by Ada Limón
A Bookshelf, by Hua Xi
Bird, by Pablo Neruda
The Guesthouse, by Rumi
The Year of the Goldfinches by Ada Limón
Summoning the Body That Is Mine When I Shut My Eyes by Jenny Johnson
Rent by Jane Cooper
Bloom by Emily Dickenson, Bloom Video
Green Tomatoes in Fire Season
by Tess Taylor
Hymn by Marie Howe
Collaborators by Keetje Kuipers
We Look At The World To See The Earth by Ed Roberson.
Downtown Oakland Poem by Barbara Jane Reyes
Spell Against Indifference by Maria Popova
To Sew a Freedom Suit By Danielle Legros Georges
Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón
The Weight of Sweetness by Li-Young Lee
Joy Is The Justice We Give Ourselves (selection) by J. Drew Lanham
The Ocean Inside Him By Rick Noguchi
Ways to Measure Trees by MaKshya Tolbert
Mi Guadalupe by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
HOLYHEADHARRIET by Ashley M. Jones
In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa by Ada Limón
Heliophilia by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Kimberly Blaeser, About Standing (in Kinship).
For Sister Gwen Brooks by Sonia Sanchez
After Rothko’s Green Blue Green (1969) by Blu Mehari
Let Them Not Say by Jane Hirshfield
Six Quatrains by Ursula K. Le Guin
Doña Sebastiana I by Rosabetty Muñoz
Eating Together by Li-Young Lee
For Mauna a Wākea by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio
Summoning the Body That Is Mine When I Shut My Eyes by Jenny Johnson
Pan Dulce by Jose Hernandez Diaz.
Poet Wrestling with the True Nature of the Photon by Rosebud Ben-Oni
The Slow Leaving by Olive Franklin
View from a Dodo’s Chair by Mónica De La Torre
the earth is a living thing by Lucille Clifton
When The World Falls in Around You or, Vows to My Palestinian Wife on Our Wedding Day by Lehua M. Taitano
Mother Metro, by Martha Sprackland
Lullabye for the Grieving, by Ashley M. Jones
Sea Church, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Summer Songs, by Rigoberto González
Quemado, Texas, by Analicia Sotelo
Earth Keeper, by N. Scott Momaday
This Too Shall Pass, by Kim Addonizio
Migraines Have Their Say, by Teri Ellen Cross Davis
The Healing Time by Pesha Gertler
From “The Black Maria”, by Aracelis Girmay
Lioness, by Adrienne Rich
Mercy, by José Antonio Rodríguez
Testimonial, by Rita Dove
Worm, by Gail McConnell
I Will Keep Broken Things, by Alice Walker
Hurry, by Marie Howe
Lineage Anagrams I, by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
Elegy in Joy (excerpt) by Muriel Rukeyser
Villanelle with a Line Borrowed from Bishop by Kimiko Hahn
For the Traveler by John O’Donohue
When I Was the Forest by Meister Eckhart
When I See the Stars in the Night Sky by Joy Priest
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
Living Testament by Gil Headley
Consider the Hands that Write this Letter by Aracelis Girmay
Love After Love by Derek Walcott
WHEREAS my eyes land on the shoreline by Layli Long Soldier
Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón
Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo
The Long Boat by Stanley Kunitz
Feather on a Midday by Sister Dang Nghiem
What is Broken is What God Blesses by Jimmy Santiago Baca
A Happy Birthday by Ted Kooser
The Worst Thing by Chelan Harkin
Words Get Tired, Don’t They? by Pedro A.Sandin-Fremaint
Breathing Underwater by Carol Bialock
The Cure by Albert Huffstickler
Some Things I Like by Lemn Sissay
THE ‘X’ IN ‘XICANO’ SPEAKS by Ariana Brown
Winter Grace by Patricia Fargnoli
Child of God, from Nikki Giovanni’s collection of African spirituals, On My Journey Now
Initiation Song from the Finders’ Lodgeby Ursula K. Le Guin
Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo
Now is the Time, by Hafiz
For Longing, by John O’Donohue, from his book To Bless the Space Between Us
God, written by Rumi and translated from Discourses of Rumi by Fatemeh Keshavarz