Jul 23, 2012 | A Filament of Hope
In elevators, supermarkets, & restaurants across the nation, total strangers feel compelled to talk about the weather. Sometimes frightened from the facts of it: how tornados now touch down in Scarsdale and New Hampshire, how the winter’s warmth supports the...
Jul 18, 2012 | Last Line First
These waking heart-dreams, things the body knows That mind would like to highjack, add a storyline, Encase inside of concrete boots, weigh down with certainties, And truths about the meta-message. What they really want is freedom, riding up-drafts. Following the...
Jul 12, 2012 | Last Line First
1. Long before I knew I’d be a mother, I dreamed of beauty and of a girl (myself, I thought), running free and even wild, adored by parents for the brilliance of her being, given tools that matched her passions: canvasses and paints,...
Jul 8, 2012 | Last Line First
I couldn’t know what it would mean, That day I sat there by your bedside Witnessing your labored journey into Death. How I’d be left here at the center of my life To face the turning of the years without you. How I’d be the one to tell our children you were gone, To...
Jul 1, 2012 | Last Line First
What I remember is The way you’d kiss the water Just before you’d dive below the surface. Summertime, the kids away at camp, while You and I discover who we are without them. What I remember is The way you’d keep on wearing sandals Even though the temperatures are...
Jun 28, 2012 | Last Line First
Across the lakeside meadow, Where the grasses meet the woods, I used to sit upon a tree stump Watching as you stood Majestically at water’s edge, Slow-dancing with the breezes, Branch-tips lightly skimming Lily-padded pond. Now that you’re gone, The...
Whether through Shamanic practice, through ministry, or through art, Riva finds peace and practice in spreading love, compassion, and empathy for the self and others. 