Dear friends,

Thank you for your responses to the Rilke poem last week (and apologies for the mixup in sending the newsletter — all sorted now). Reading your replies makes the poem come alive in the today of your days.

I have been quite unwell this week. I needed to cancel a few events and spent most of the week shivering and fevering my way through the days. My apologies for not meeting up with any of you who were going to those events. I’m on the mend! But this winter infection is brutal.

This week, for many of the Christianities of the world (but not all), it is Holy Week, a week commemorating the senseless execution of Jesus of Nazareth by Roman authorities. A few years ago, I made a video of reflections on those stations. You can watch it here. It’s a video meditating on the life and death of a revolutionary whose action was nonviolent, not a devotion to a birthed god. This, for me, is an inheritance: having been brought up in a religion that proclaimed certitude about life after death, I now live without certitude about life after death, but with a conviction that our stories need to be good enough to inspire courage while we live.

I wanted to write a poem about my relationship to religion, not a traditional believer but not unaffected by belief, either. This one is from Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon & CHEERIO, 2025).

Do You Believe in God? 

Though I’ve lost God, God is
the only language that I speak. 
I need to describe this loss. 

I thought he appeared
and disappeared. Now God’s
nowhere, though this loss

is like memory carried in a gust
of air, a scent. I make myself
describe what I have lost

with attention to the yearning
I still have. But I fear 
God became a word 

to bear all I could not bear. 
God bore it well. No
containing now. An empty shell. 

I have a need, or grief, 
for what was never there. 
I have lost God. God
is the only language I speak.

It’s a loose villanelle, this poem, with the first and third lines repeating in alternating patterns as the final line (or lines) of the subsequent stanzas. I liked the idea of the word “God” being lost, but the language of the question that God contains — “the only language I speak” — being fundamental. I liked the idea, too, of the image of the empty shell: when you hold a shell up to your ear, you hear … the sea? the sound of your own heart echoing back to yourself as if it’s new? a memory of a childhood? a first wondertaste of mystery? Yes.

My question is: What changes have occurred in your feelings about religion as you’ve gone through your own decades and experiences? Which of them have been planned? And — especially — which have been surprising or unexpected?

I’ll look forward to reading these, friends.

PS: Recently, I was interviewed for Pam King’s With and For podcast — you can find the episode on their website or on any podcast app.

Poetry in the World

A list of my events: Online and in the U.S. (Manhattan and Rhinebeck, NY; Notre Dame, IN; Santa Fe, NM) and Scotland (Iona)

April 1, Online

Join Eddie Gonzalez and myself for a free virtual celebration of National Poetry Month hosted by The Well World, beginning at 3 p.m ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)

April 12, Online

Interfaith Alignment is collaborating with On Being and The Luce Foundation for an event in celebration of National Poetry Month. I’ll read poems on prayer and protest and hold a brief Q&A, beginning at 5 p.m. ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)

April 16, Manhattan, New York

Save the date for a special event to honor and support the work of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. I’ll be reading new poems from my next collection; join me there at 7 p.m. This event is in-person only, it won’t be recorded or Zoomed. (For more info, click on the date heading.)

April 23, Notre Dame, Indiana

I’ll be giving the keynote for a symposium at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art. (For more info, click on the date heading.)

May 31–June 5, Rhinebeck, New York

This spring, I’m leading a six-day workshop at the Omega Institute. We’ll read and examine poems and also write and discuss our own. I’d love to see you there. (For more info, click on the date heading.)

June 27–July 3, Iona, Scotland

Krista and I will be leading a week of conversation (with some musical guests) on Iona, an island off an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is filled, but if you want to be on the wait list, you can email the Saint Columba hotel by clicking on the title just above here. (For more info, click on the date heading.)

August 9–13, Santa Fe, New Mexico

I’m leading a four-day intensive workshop at Modern Elder Academy called “Poetry as a Common Language”. We’ll read, write, and discuss poems on finding and deepening connection. (For more information, click on the date heading.)

October 13, Online

I’ll be leading a virtual craft intensive on poetry and desire through Poets House, beginning at 6 p.m. ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)