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Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma

author, poet, teacher, and performer

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    • THE KURAL: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural
    • The Safety of Edges
    • Give, Eat, and Live: Poems of Avvaiyar
    • Body and Earth
    • A Feast for the Tongue
    • Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo
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Moments of Respite

January 19, 2026

As many of us begin a new year—one of many new years on many different calendars—it can be easy to let whatever sense of spaciousness and ease we may have found over the holidays slowly and steadily fade into the background.

So I wanted to share a poem about how moments of respite can appear when we least expect them.

If you’d like to listen to it, you can do so here:

Or you can read it for yourself below:

Cascadian Lyric

After four days of rain
the light falls on green leaves
salal glowing brightly
almost from within
then fading with the sky
clouds moving in the leaves
not two things or one
but one moment unfolding
rain and sunlight and leaves
within it everything
within it without end

from The Safety of Edges.

May each new day offer its own moments of respite, and may we take rest in each moment.

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