[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

Enter your email here to receive Weekly Wide-Awake

back

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
ee Cummings

Carrying a heart is promise and treasure. Carrying a heart is comfort and joy. Carrying a heart is hope and practice. Carrying a heart is grown up and generous. Carrying a heart is reciprocal and patient. Carrying a heart shows up and pays attention. Carrying a heart is poetry and prose. Carrying a heart is the 10 feet ahead we can see in front of us while driving at night and the vast beyond that we see with our intuition. Carrying a heart is root and bud.

What does it mean to be the root of the root and the bud of the bud? It means beauty and depth — on the outside and the inside. It means perfect timing — a time to grow and a time to bloom. It means shared secrets and celebrations — over time. It means flow — like tides and days. It means connection and interdependence.

This love is bigger than the stars. It is mutual and profound. It is exponential and elemental. It is beginning and end. It is root and bud.