Poems read :~Trudy JohnstonMaybe love is like a mackerel lineWhen I was about 7 my parents took me fishing in a small boat.We each cast a line, a mackerel line,a single thread holding many hooks,over the side and into the waiting seas.The line spooled into the inky depthsand when I finally pulled it upthere was one wriggling fish, some seaweed and an old flip flop attached, That which was wanted and the abandoned detritus of a careless world. Maybe love is like that.We cast our longing overboard, watching it sink into the dark unknown.There is no way we can determine what we will land. Love and kindness and connectionand pain and failure. The present moment and our histories all tangled, and all caught fromexactly the same place. To catch one, we have to open to catching everything that comes with it. I’ve been finding the depthof love, and the preciousness of itinextricably caught up withpain too. Love brings up things most unlike itself. And I’m not returning any of it.~Mary TurnerAll day my heart says nothing but thank you (inspired by a poem of the same name by Jeanne Lohmann)All day my heart says nothing but thank youI breathe the words with every stepStill walking heel to toe with all of youMy mind can still see the peonies falling open like your beautiful facesI am saying thank you, yes, to all that comesAnd practicing dying with all that falls awayGratitude comes easily after such connectionThe gifts and openings of our shared humanitySwimming in the merciful ocean, just being a fishAnd with wholehearted joy I am saying thank you as IRemember how it is to be nothing and everything all at onceThe boundless love with which the dharma passes warm hand to heart