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MERI Center Blog

March 4, 2020
SMS Meeting Poems

Remember

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

~Joy Harjo

February 26, 2020
SMS Meeting Poems
Parenting

Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?

Don't fill up on bread

I say absent-mindedly

The servings here are huge

 

My son, whose hair may be

receding a bit, says

Did you really just

say that to me?

 

What he doesn't know

is that when we're walking

together, when we get

to the curb

I sometimes start to reach

for his hand

 

~Robert Hershon

 

February 19, 2020
SMS Meeting Poems

We've decided to share the poems read at the UCSF Symptom Management Service Interdisciplinary team meetings on this blog, making them accessible to all of our supporters.

This week Judy Long shared a lovely poem by Miller Williams.  

Compassion

Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it.
What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism
is always a sign of things no ears have heard,
no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

~Miller Williams

 

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