Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – Self-Compassion – James Crews
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Self-Compassion’ by James Crews. He is the author of The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy (Storey Publishing, 2022) and the co-founder of the Poetry of Resilience seminars.
Crews wrote ‘Self-Compassion’ the summer after the pandemic first began. He explained ‘when I felt so worried for the state of our country and planet, when everything in our individual lives also seemed to be falling apart—the leaky pipe, my husband’s health. I’m a recovering cynic, so self-care practices can still seem silly to me, but in this case, I had no choice but to be kind to myself, the wise words of Wendell Berry echoing in my mind: ‘Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.’”
I have matched artwork by @sbenja823 – Shelley Benjamin with this image entitled ‘Catch’. You can view her Instagram feed here.
If you would like to be featured in our Saturday Poetry section, please ensure you include the hashtag #theappwhisperer to any images posted to Instagram. This will mean we will be able to consider it.
To view the others we have published in this section, go here.
Self Compassion – James Crews
My friend and I snickered the first time
we heard the meditation teacher, a grown man,
call himself honey, with a hand placed
over his heart to illustrate how we too
might become more gentle with ourselves
and our runaway minds. It’s been years
since we sat with legs twisted on cushions,
holding back our laughter, but today
I found myself crouched on the floor again,
not meditating exactly, just agreeing
to be still, saying honey to myself each time
I thought about my husband splayed
on the couch with aching joints and fever
from a tick bite—what if he never gets better?—
or considered the threat of more wildfires,
the possible collapse of the Gulf Stream,
then remembered that in a few more minutes,
I’d have to climb down to the cellar and empty
the bucket I placed beneath a leaky pipe
that can’t be fixed until next week. How long
do any of us really have before the body
begins to break down and empty its mysteries
into the air? Oh honey, I said—for once
without a trace of irony or blush of shame—
the touch of my own hand on my chest
like that of a stranger, oddly comforting
in spite of the facts.
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter BA (Hons), ARPS is a British photographer, photography journalist, editor and curator, and the founder and editorial director of TheAppWhisperer.com, an independent international photography publication established in 2009.She holds a First Class Honours degree in Photography and is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society (ARPS).Her journalism, criticism and editorial work have appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Vogue Italia, LensCulture, Popular Photography and NikonPro, among other international publications.Through TheAppWhisperer, she brings together academic knowledge, professional photographic expertise and more than 17 years of specialist editorial experience to examine contemporary photography, mobile imaging, computational photography, photographic applications and emerging imaging technologies.
