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Posts tagged ‘poetry’

May 29

Eyes to Begin Anew, Again and Again

“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.”― John Ruskin

“Suddenly, sun. Over my shoulder
in the middle of gray November
what I hoped to do comes back,
asking.

Across the street the fiery trees
hold onto their leaves,
red and gold in the final months
of this unfinished year,
they offer blazing riddles.

In the frozen fields of my life
there are no shortcuts to spring,
but stories of great birds in migration
carrying small ones on their backs,
predators flying next to warblers
they would, in a different season, eat.

Stunned by the astonishing mix in this uneasy world
that plunges in a single day from despair
to hope and back again, I commend my life
to Ruskin’s difficult duty of delight,
and to that most beautiful form of courage,
to be happy.” – Jeanne Lohmann

Seasons, circles, rhythms.
Ebb and flow of living present.
Awake and aware.
Unfolding and becoming.
Familiar yet not the same.
As Heraclitus’ said “no man ever steps in the same river twice”
Our daily work?
To be in this day alone and know that we have arrived.
In being not doing.
To the difficult duty of delight.
With courage to be happy now, not someday when.
Senses honed, fresh eyes to take in beauty, abase and abound.

“Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.”― John Ruskin, The Two Paths

May 13

Another Story

“Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.” – Saint Augustine

“There’s always another story. There’s more than meets the eye.”― W.H. Auden

May I be better at counting what is already present and available
Recording rights
Racking up joy
Frivolous with kindness
Hoarding awareness
Hearty with laughter
Harboring reverence
Rapt with attention
Careless with forgiveness, compassion, empathy
Slow to judge, assume, name, dismiss
Quick to inquiry
Choosing abundance over scarcity
Blown away again and again by simple beauty, abase and abound
Wandering aimlessly into unknowing, unlearning, undoing
On the hunt for wonder, awe, delight
Swift to praise, encouragement, enthusiasm
A bleeding heart, a sucker for believing in goodness, light, generosity
Early to welcoming, inviting and hospitality
Saving chairs at the table of love.

“There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story. ”― Mary Lou Kownacki

Mar 29

Might as Well Love

“Peace isn’t a feeling. It’s a practice, a daily choosing a stubborn, sacred hope. But even in our deepest divisions, something new is still possible…may we find the courage to be peacemakers. To stay at the table. To believe, against all odds, that love still has work to do here. And maybe, just maybe, that it starts with us. – Kate Bowler

The Facts of Life by Pádraig Ó Tuama

“That you were born
and you will die.

That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.

That you will lie
if only to yourself.

That you will get tired.

That you will learn most from the situations
you did not choose.

That there will be some things that move you
more than you can say.

That you will live
that you must be loved.

That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of
your attention.

That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg
of two people who once were strangers
and may well still be.

That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes better than good.

That life is often not so good.

That life is real
and if you can survive it, well,
survive it well
with love
and art
and meaning given
where meaning’s scarce.

That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.

That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constraining.

That you will probably be okay.

That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.

So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.”

Poetry to lift.
Kindness to connect.
Laughter to lighten.
Music to dance.
Wonder to awaken.
Awe to reverence.
Patience to wait.
Joy to steady.
Hope to pull.
Peace to offer.
Light to cast.
Love to live well.
Is there a better place?
Might as well love.

“To accept the lively, the messy, and the unexpected things in our days, knowing that God sees them and has an eternal perspective, is to say with confidence I receive your timing.”― Emily P. Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life

Mar 16

Invisible Cloak

“Spirituality is about what we do about the fire inside of us, about how we channel our eros.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing

BEANNACHT – Beautifully read by John O’Donohue, one of my favorite poets

“On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors, Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.” – John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

Peace
Be Still
Nourishment, clarity, fluency, protection
An invisible, profound, grounding, freeing, all encompassing, overwhelming place and space
At your feet
A blessing, cup overflowing, love, awe, contentment, ease
Right where you are
Within you awaiting your arrival
Peace
Be Still
Welcome home.

“But within ourselves we can experience a real difference between restlessness and solitude. What is that difference? It is the difference between living in freedom rather than compulsion; restfulness rather than restlessness; patience rather than impatience; inwardness rather than frenzied outwardness; altruism rather than greediness; authentic friendship rather than possessive clinging; and empathy rather than apathy.”― Ronald Rolheiser, The Restless Heart

Aug 12

To Go Easy

“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.” – Paulo Coelho

When I am Among the Trees
by Mary Oliver

“When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Get outside.
Get outside yourself.
Then re-enter.
Refreshed.
Filled.
Renewed perspective.
Open heart and mind.
Light spirit.
Be good to yourself, to others.
Go easy, find ease.
Bow often.

“The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness.” – Sakyong Mipham

Jul 31

Gift of Gratitude

Gratitude does not require perfection.
Nor different circumstances.
Nor someday when…
A keen eye.
A shift in attitude.
Open hands to embrace.
Porous heart to let the good in.
Rapt attention to the present.
Ordinary days.
Hope with hip boots.
Laughter overflowing.
Music turned up.
Delight awaiting our awakening.
Joy in the simple.

Mar 22

To Live in this World

“Stepping out of the busyness, stopping our endless pursuit of getting somewhere else, is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.”― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver

“Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.

Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”

Loving.
Holding.
Letting go.

Timing.

To live in this world.

Noticing.
Partaking.
Raptly aware.
Deeply grateful.
Sacred holy ground of the present.
Root.

Mar 2

Receive this Day

BLESSING
No matter how much forethought,
working ahead, “life hacking,”
I will never finish it all.
So give me a fresh sense of urgency.
When is the sunrise?
Read me a poem.
Who here has an amazingly embarrassing story?
There will need to be a delay at the pharmacy,
the pickup line, and the checkout counter.
You are giving me back this day.” – Kate Bowler

“I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.
So why not get started immediately.
I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.
And to write music or poems about.
Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.
You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then, and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.” – Mary Oliver, from Blue Horses

May you be the poet, the poem, of this day.
Blessed and a blessing.
In all of its glory and ordinariness.
In chores and obligations.
Slow to see what’s surrounding you and within.
Allowing gratitude to rise.
Consternation to fade.
Rapt awe, wonder, delight and joy in drops or tidal waves.
Receive the gifts of this day.
Hidden in the giving away.

“Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.”― Maya Angelou

Oct 10

Autumn Blaze

“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!”― Rainbow Rowell , Attachments

October by Robert Frost

“O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.”

October, the heart of autumn.
Deep rich colors ablaze.
Hearty foliage.
Soon to shed.
Bloom in reverse.
Harvest from seeds planted in spring.
Loved through the summer.
Do not wish to go back nor dread winter ahead.
Remain in this day, in this season.
Seek the beauty and purpose in each season.
Gather the harvest.
Steep in abundance.

Jul 13

Ordinary Sugar

“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.” – Novalis

“Ordinary sugar coaxed to its epiphany.” – Amanda Gunn

The power of poetry to transform.
The dance of words to delight.
The pause to witness, acknowledge, embrace.
Ordinary to epiphany.
Daily life.
Satisfied in the weeding, watering, tending, growing.
May the prose of today give you peace, grace and joy.
Enter the poem.
Sometimes, sweet as sugar.

“She’d mastered,
in a life, how to grow
a winter meal, to till, to weed,
to water, to tend, learned how,
I hope, to be satisfied.” – Amanda Gunn

Ordinary Sugar poem here featured on Poetry Unbound with Pádraig Ó Tuama.

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