As a Mother, I Know...

I know the sweet smell of newborns
who smiled at the recognition of my voice and touch.
I know the true of meaning of selfless.
I know the value of my husband
who steps up and carries my weight when I can’t.
I know what it means to love another more than you love yourself.
I know unconditional love.
I know eternal love.
I know strength, devotion, and patience.
I know that dreams that do come true.
I know life
and thank God for allowing me to play a role in it.

Happy Mother's Day

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."
--
Elizabeth Stone

We are influenced by the people with which we surround ourselves...

“The next best thing to being wise oneself is to
live in a circle of those who are.”
--
C.S. Lewis (1898–1963)
Irish writer, scholar

Celebrate National Poetry Month with Poetry on the Porch

National Poetry Month is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. The concept is to widen the attention of individuals and the media—to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern. We hope to increase the visibility and availability of poetry in popular culture while acknowledging and celebrating poetry’s ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated.

Celebrate National Poetry Month with the Alice Paul Institute's Porch Series Event, Poetry on the Porch on Thursday, April 21. Register today!

The Alice Paul Institute is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 corporation based in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. It was founded in 1984 by a group of dedicated volunteers to commemorate the centennial of Alice Paul's 1885 birth and to further her legacy. The organization was operated by volunteers for more than a decade. Today, four staff members, as well as volunteers, oversee the daily business and special events at Paulsdale.

Ash Wednesday

By Kevin Young
Kevin Young's Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels, is an epic retelling in verse of the mutiny by fifty-three Africans, illegally sold in Havana, on board the slave ship Amistad in 1839.

Ash Wednesday
Once I thought everything
has a soul
Then I learnt only
the fool fears the tree—
It is empty—
So too the wind
that sends it which
way & that—
Now I know God
is such a wind
from which we
are rent—
The heavens take
the tree
from the tree—
leaf by leaf—
Being gone, taken,
is what means Heaven—
It is full—of wings—
A music of what
is missing
since nothing
but men have souls
tho, it appears,
not many.