A Breviary for the Lost is a memoir in poems about a time of personal, spiritual, and psychological upheaval, within circumstances of political and moral challenge. I met Loren when we were both college students and he was a fledgling member of the Christian Brothers, a Catholic religious teaching order. The time we shared most directly was the late 1960s and early 1970s although our friendship endures to this day.

I think anyone—married, partnered or single—can benefit from the exercises I did to “get ready to get ready” to write an online dating profile.

Like all of us, I lived through the fear of catching a deadly virus, the fallout from an economic shutdown, months of social isolation, tension overs masks and vaccinations, and political upheaval I could not have imagined. In January, I decided it was now-or-never. I called the relationship coach I’d met the year before and made an appointment.

Under a grant from the Community Building Initiative, we have been working for several years to strengthen the influence and power of our beautiful, diverse community. The cleanup day I describe in this post has happened at least four times before, and our group of neighbors has succeeded in curtailing sideshow type events and homeless encampments on our streets (at least for now).

I see from a Facebook post that the literary giant Robert Bly has passed away. This blog post is longer than usual because it consists of an essay from my book, Poetry, Politics and Passion about my relationship with Bly. It’s the best way I can think to memorialize him.