The First Time I Read Poetry with Pádraig Ó Tuama

I had a dream before I woke up—
they often happen that way, before I wake up.
We were reading poetry
in a pub down the road.
People read lines,
some theirs, some from others.
Abigail brought a poem that
begged to be read.
Each line kissed with
exclamation marks and ellipsis
introduced each small grove of punctuation.
The spacing went on and on and on the page.
“To read this, you have to
punctuate with your eyes.
This is a slow poem, the blank of the page
forcing silence as we
wait for the next sound.”
After the pub, a few of us
road bikes back to your cottage
where you asked us about our lives.
You were a lot skinnier than
I thought you’d be.

If you’re aching to listen for God in the real stuff of life—grief, wonder, doubt, desire—I offer spiritual direction as a space to breathe and be heard. We listen together for the Spirit moving in the ordinary, the hidden, the in-between. No fixing. No formulas. Just presence, honesty, and room to be fully human before God.

If that sounds like what your soul needs, I’d love to walk with you