Anthroposophy NYC Blog

KEEP TALKING
(dispatches from social isolation)

First Offerings: Gail Langstroth

Dear Friends,

I started my lockdown during the second week of March. I tried to take one long walk a day. My only rule was to always discover new paths and parks, never to repeat a route. Twice I actually got lost. And although I did have my cell phone, I refused to use its GPS. I wanted to find my own way back to a street or corner that was familiar. Immediately I noticed the number of robins, hopping like rabbits, bowing their heads like monks in prayer, or puddle-bathing in the pools of rainwater.

A series of poems titled Robins & Counting grew out of what I saw. Often, at other times during the day, from seemingly nowhere a memory would surface. Aspects of these memories, as well, might find their way into a poem.

Eventually the counting of innocent robins shifted; I began to note the number of individuals who were dying of coronavirus. At present the poems are untitled. I have attached poem xxvii out of the series.

To close, you may click on a link to a video/collage of the title poem from my new bilingual book.

I wish for anyone who may read this, that you are aguantando, a Spanish word meaning to hold out, in these months of shifting and change.

Warmly,
Gail Langstroth

P.S.:
If anyone would like to converse, exchange, talk about THE POEM as a tool on the PATH . . .
feel free to contact me: gplcampostella (at) gmail.com

*****

poem xxvii from Robins & Counting

I attach a photo of the 5-leaf clover
I found on one of my lockdown walks

que buen augurio Antonio writes

a new Spanish word for me : augurio

its vowel/diphthongs au / u / io
meaning : omen / portent / sign

& its—Latin / Sanskrit roots
how the gods would reveal their will through birdsong

listening to órnis / birds

~

each morning I stand before
the open window—

my Órnis-Omen / Psalm

(gail p. langstroth)