22 Comments
User's avatar
Judith's avatar

Oh, Dear Kathleen! Your poem covers it all! WW would be proud! I will miss your Sunday morning brilliance and rage. Swim, plant, tend, schmooze! All good! ❤️

Expand full comment
Kathleen Sullivan's avatar

Thank you Judith!! Your support and enthusiasm for this weekly effort means a lot to me!!

Expand full comment
kathy mikulka's avatar

Thank you. Your poem says it all. We need to spend this planting/harvesting season making our voices heard. We need to tell our legislators that they need to step up to protect our children, our neighbors, our planet before it's too late--for the climate and our democracy. The numbers of protesters must grow so that they get the message loud and clear. The energy one gets from attending a demonstration--not just from fellow demonstrators, but all those driving by honking their support--is like plunging into that cold ocean. We need to use that energy to continue to call our legislators each day to express our outrage. There is a new outrage every day: Monday call about the demise of Head Start. Such cruelty.

Expand full comment
Kathleen Sullivan's avatar

Right On Kathy!! I love your analogy of the energy one gets from standing out to the rush from a cold plunge! The demise of Head Start! NO! I haven't even read that anywhere there is so much going on.

Expand full comment
Paul Draper's avatar

May your summer sabbatical be a blessing.

Expand full comment
Pam Waite's avatar

Thank you for accompanying us on this dark journey since the horror of November's election. It will be one year past when you return. Here's to a now of gratitude and light, a future of ?. You remind us that we are all in this together.

Expand full comment
Kathleen Sullivan's avatar

Thank you thank you Pam!! "A now of gratitude and light, a future of ?" Yes yes. Well said. It is so important to hold that gratitude and light at the same time as we hold this cruel shattering.

Expand full comment
Deb's avatar

Kathleen, I fill so thankful I found you. I was taken back by your entry - What, you are stopping for now? But, I love it and am in the same spot and it was if you gave me the okay to plunge my hands into the earth and continue my celebration of spring’s rebirth. The poem was perfect and I will read those books. Couldn’t agree more with ‘illiberalism’. Btw, where in Long Island did you grow up? I grew up in up in Merrick. Thank you again for everything ❤️

Expand full comment
Kathleen Sullivan's avatar

OH my, Deb!! I am from next door: Bellmore!! My grandparents were from Merrick. They had a sweet cape overlooking Merrick Rd. Down the street was a cow farm! I haven't been back there for years and years. Spent my summers at Jones Beach where the water was warm! But my love for oceans started there!! And you?

Expand full comment
Deb's avatar

So sorry for delay - we just had to say goodbye to our sweet cat, Livvie. So hard and so sad. Grew up in a cape off of Merrick Ave and Little Whaleneck. I’m a little younger than you, but early childhood were the last of the potato farms. Once we were old enough we rode our bikes to Jones beach. Know every stitch of it. My love now is mountain and lakes. My park had a place in Vermont for years and now we have a second home on Candlewood Lake in Ct. We live in Tewksbury NJ. Jobs brought us here long ago. Enjoy every moment in your garden.

Expand full comment
Kathryn Porterfield's avatar

Kathleen, I shall miss what you share for the months ahead. Brave of you to plunge! I live in Portland and can't quite imagine doing that. Maybe this is the year! Happy times in the sun and the garden! I hope there is a different country by the time you return.

Expand full comment
Kathleen Sullivan's avatar

OH do try a plunge, Kathryn. Go in very very slowly, breathing the whole time. When I first did it I would run in screaming and run out screaming but that was very unpleasant. Then I watched the experts do it and tried it and it was transformational!!

Expand full comment
Robert Stevens's avatar

I will be in the garden with you.

Expand full comment
Kathleen Sullivan's avatar

Just be careful of those apples!!

Expand full comment
Daphne Gregory-Thomas's avatar

Grateful for your accompaniment for all these months. Now, enjoy you immersion otherwise, a renewal for your soul and spirit. I/we are here for any balm you may need along the way, reciprocal in intention for all you have given your readers these many weeks. As has been proven, we will find ourselves in some same place during your hiatus. It is that way with like minded humans, drawn to rejuvenation that align. I look forward to that.....

Expand full comment
Kathleen Sullivan's avatar

Hello Daphne, I do look forward as well to the moment we find ourselves in the same place. I wish we were doing that writing program together again this year. Do enjoy the one you are attending. It sounds so wonderful. Yes to alignment with like-minded humans! And a few butterflies!! May your writing be a great balm and your rabble rousing a great joy. Till soon!!

Expand full comment
Life is Short's avatar

You will be missed

Expand full comment
Life is Short's avatar

I love your beautiful writing, filled with wisdom and honesty. Will look forward to seeing you back here after you put you garden to bed in the fall🙏💕

Expand full comment
Kathleen Conklin's avatar

Your poem is stupendous!

Looking forward to read your posts in the fall.

Expand full comment
helena lipstadt's avatar

Thank you, Kathleen.

Go well into the season.

Expand full comment
Leonard Korn's avatar

another poem, a short one:

We've become a country with no laws that bind

by Leonard Korn

We've become a country

with no laws that bind.

Can we just call people criminals

and then they become criminals,

and sentence them away to rot?

Are they criminals because we name them such?

Have we lost all laws that bind?

Are they criminals because we call them such?

We've become a nation without laws,

no due process here,

it's too complicated and takes too long.

We're trampling on the country we've loved,

losing it at breakneck speed,

shameful before our very eyes.

Expand full comment
Sue Inches's avatar

Kathleen, sorry to see you go because you’re writing is so vivid and so comforting. You will be missed from Substack but perhaps we can connect over the summer here in Maine. Your poem is a wonderful way to adjourn and I suggest it as a great place to start when the days get short again.

Expand full comment