Czeslaw Milosz wrote this beautiful poem that segues me into my Sunday Sabbath. It was a busy and productive week. Some poetry is finding its way to the surface, but I find the weeks I have classes it is more difficult to move those thoughts from my mind and heart to the paper. When we are able to find what makes us whole, we can find forgiveness in our heart. It is like a fog lifts and we can see the beauty of the world that beckons.
A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I walked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over
honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that I was once the same man
did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.
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
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
“When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.”
Such a lovely and true image of a fog that has lifted. Thank you!
Yes, we have to look to see and sometimes it is like a fog.
Have a blessed Sabbath rest.
I did. I hope you enjoyed your day Tony.
Yes, a day to be happy when one can appreciate the moment. Touching poem.
Thank you.
This is what it feels like to be 100% in balance and grounded. Thank you!
You are welcome Joan.
Reblogged this on Blog of an e-marketer by Main Uddin.
Thank you for the re-blog. It is greatly appreciated.
Beautifully peaceful post. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
You are welcome Sye.
🙂
Beautiful poem. Thank you, Ivon. Blessings for a lovely Sun-day.
Thank you on both counts Isabella. I hope you had a lovely Sun-day as well.
Lovely poem…every day is a new start! I used to tell my students that everyday is a new beginning.
Good advice, every day is a fresh opportunity to change the present into something dreamed for.
I agree.
That is the mark of a great teacher.
just a slice–like a sun beam in a garden–that says a lot about viewpoint. I like the anti-rueful tone of the final 4 lines, as well as epic progression therein, as well. I like the choice of ‘plot device’ i.e. hummingbird…
I see this, inside and out. (perhaps better said)
We need to look to see. Those last four lines send a message to me in that respect.
Beautiful poem.