I am at the end of the week. It was good. Silver Birch Press invited me to submit a poem for publication and I sent End of the Week for an upcoming anthology. When I began to write poetry again a few months ago, it filled a creative and reflective void in my life. I did not expect the invitation, so I am grateful for the invitation and acceptance.
Jane Kenyon wrote this beautiful poem about the end of day. I think it speaks to the need for sabbath on a daily basis and at the end of the week. Last week, when I attended a presentation by Dr. Philip McCrae he used the term digital sabbath at one point. As I navigate this emergent digital landscape, I recognize the importance of taking time each day away from the computer. It made a difference this past week. In the silence, I find peace, wisdom, and love in the gap between each moment.
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope, nonviolence and its anticipatory relationship with the future, as essential elements to teaching and learning.
Academic publications can be found at Ivon Gile Prefontaine on ResearchGate
Teacher as Transformer 
Congrat’s on publication and thanks for sharing this poem. I do so agree. We need time away from our computers.
Be well and happy weekend.
Thank you Jamie. We do need those breaks.
Congratulations on publication, Ivon. I enjoyed reading your poem and Jane Kenyon’s.
Russ
Thank you Russ
You and I share a love for a lot of the same writers and poets, Ivon!
I am finding this is the case with many of the blogs I follow. It has been the attractor in many cases for me to follow certain blogs.
Congratulations Ivon! Beautiful poetry.
Thank you Len.
I too agree on time off from the computer and I do this usually every Sunday. Thank you for sharing your poem, it’s beautiful. And congratulation on the invitation. Sheri
Thank you Sheri.
Very nice. Wendell Berry has some great “Sabbath poems”. Have you read any of his work?
Wendell Berry is one of my favourite poets. When I began this journey of a weekly sabbath, I used one of his poems. I love his view of the world and the need to see our world differently in rapidly changing times.
Congrats on the invitation!
Thank you Madeline.
This was such a beautiful read. Ivon. The poem is so lovely.
It was one of those poems that I just opened the book and it where my eyes landed. It grabbed my heart.
Congratulations, Ivon!
Thank you Richard.
congratulations on your poem and the beautiful poem you shared.. and what a great idea – a digital sabbath – yes…
I am working on this idea of a digital sabbath more and more. I find it brings a lightness to life. Thank you Valerie.
gorgeous imagery. Your words are perfectly chosen–not a one extra. And many congratulations, Ivon! (luv the “silver horn” of the moon…cuz it does call to you)
Thank you. It does call.
Magnificent, soothing poem…and congratulations on the request for a submission of your work! What a reaffirming way to end the week. I hope you are having a peaceful weekend..
It was and I did. Thank you Mimi.
Congratulations Ivan on your publication and for taking the digital Sabbath — very important.I love the light in the late afternoon and the restoration of silence that settles upon the day as afternoon turns to evening. How well you have expressed the mood and the feel of this magical time as evening comes. Blessings, Alia
It is a great time of the day and the week. It does bring some lightness of life.
Thank you Alia.
Publication congratulations! Hope that’s the start of many more to come 🙂
Thank you. If it is the only one, I will be grateful for that much.
Congrats! well deserved invitation
Thank you twice over.
hi 🙂 please pick up your awards at my page ^^ http://theeclecticeccentricshopaholic.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/about-damn-time/ xo, kz
PS congrats on the publication. you really deserve it. there are plenty of wonderful gems, treasures here in your blog.
Thank you kz on both counts.