Belief
Forever nameless
Forever unknown
Forever unconceived
Forever unrepresented
yet forever felt in the soul.
By: D.H.Lawrence
Tending the Garden Poem for the
Day
After Death
The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where thro’ the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say:
“Poor child, poor child:” and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:
He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm tho’ I am cold.
Christina Rossetti
Voices Of The Night : A Psalm Of Life
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, — act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
- Henry Wordsworth Longfellow
“Mr. Longfellow said of this poem: ‘I kept it some time in manuscript, unwilling to show it to any one, it being a voice from my inmost heart, at a time when I was rallying from depression.’ Before it was published in the Knickerbocker Magazine, October, 1838, it was read by the poet to his college class at the close of a lecture on Goethe. Its title, though used now exclusively for this poem, was originally, in the poet’s mind, a generic one. He notes from time to time that he has written a psalm, a psalm of death, or another psalm of life. The ‘psalmist’ is thus the poet himself. When printed in the Knickerbocker it bore as a motto the lines from Crashaw:
Life that shall send
A challenge to its end,
And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend.”
Unending Love
I seem to
have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I
hear old chronicles of love, it’s age old pain,
It’s ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I
have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
by Rabindranath Tagore
Sleep on
You who are not kept anxiously awake for love’s sake, sleep on.
In restless search for that river, we hurry along;
you whose heart such anxiety has not disturbed, sleep on.
Love’s place is out beyond the many separate sects;
since you love choosing and excluding, sleep on.
Love’s dawn cup is our sunrise, his dusk our supper;
you whose longing is for sweets and whose passion is for supper, sleep on.
In search of the philosopher’s stone, we are melting like copper;
you whose philosopher’s stone is cushion and pillow, sleep on.
I have abandoned hope for my brain and head; you who wish for
a clear head and fresh brain, sleep on.
I have torn speech like a tattered robe and let words go;
you who are still dressed in your clothes, sleep on.
Translated by Jack Marshall
I was warned against writing this book.
People said:
If one did not watch out,
It could be burned.
So I did as I used to do as a child.
When I was sad, I always had to pray.
I bowed to my Lover and said: “Alas, Lord,
Now I am saddened all because of your honor.
If I am going to receive no comfort from you now,
Then you led me astray,
Because you are the one who told me to write it.”
At once God revealed himself to my joyless soul, held this book in his right hand, and said:
“My dear one, do not be overly troubled,
No one can burn the truth….
The words symbolize my marvelous Godhead.
It flows continuously
Into your soul from my divine mouth.
The sound of the words is a sign of my living spirit
And through it achieves genuine truth.
Now examine all these words—
How admirably do they proclaim my personal secrets!
So have no doubts about yourself.”
“Ah, Lord, if I were a learned religious man,
And if you had performed this unique miracle using him,
You would receive everlasting honor for it.
But how is one supposed to believe
That you have built a golden house on filthy ooze…
Lord, earthly wisdom will not be able to find you there.”
“….One finds many a professor learned in scripture who actually is a fool in
my eyes.
And I’ll tell you something else:
It is a great honor for me with regard to them, and it very much strengthens
Holy Christianity
That the unlearned tongue, aided by my Holy Spirit, teaches the learned
tongue.”
- Mechthild of Magdeburg
An Ox Looks At Man
They are more delicate even than shrubs and they run
and run from one side to the other, always forgetting
something.
Surely they lack I don’t know what
basic ingredient, though they present themselves
as noble or serious, at times.
Oh, terribly serious,
even tragic.
Poor things, one would say that they hear
neither the song of the air nor the secrets of hay;
likewise they seem not to see what is visible
and common to each of us, in space.
And they are sad,
and in the wake of sadness they come to cruelty.
All their expression lives in their eyes–and loses itself
to a simple lowering of lids, to a shadow.
And since there is little of the mountain about them –
nothing in the hair or in the terribly fragile limbs
but coldness and secrecy — it is impossible for them
to settle themselves into forms that are calm, lasting
and necessary.
They have, perhaps, a kind
of melancholy grace (one minute) and with this they allow
themselves to forget the problems
and translucent inner emptiness
that make them so poor and so lacking
when it comes to uttering silly and painful sounds:
desire, love, jealousy
(what do we know?) — sounds that scatter and fall in the field
like troubled stones and burn the herbs and the water,
and after this it is hard to keep chewing away at our truth.
by Carlos Drummond de Andrade
The Rainy Season
The rainy season is abroad
And the skirt of my dress is wet.
You have gone off to distant lands,
And my heart finds it unbearable.
I keep sending letters to my Beloved
Asking when He will return.
Mira’s Lord is the courtly Giridhara:
O Krishna, O Brother of Balram,
Grant me thy sight.
- Mirabai
Out, Out
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them ‘Supper’. At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap–
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh.
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all–
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart–
He saw all spoiled. ‘Don’t let him cut my hand off
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!’
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then — the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little — less — nothing! — and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
- Robert Frost
Dream Variation
To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me–
That is my dream!
To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.
- Langston Hughes
Hope is the Thing with Feathers
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
- Emily Dickinson
Passage to India
Singing my days,
Singing the great achievements of the present,
Singing the strong light works of engineers,
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)
In the Old World the east the Suez canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann’d,
The seas inlaid with eloquent gentle wires;
Yet first to sound, and ever sound, the cry with thee O soul,
The Past! the Past! the Past!
The Past—the dark unfathom’d retrospect!
The teeming gulf—the sleepers and the shadows!
The past—the infinite greatness of the past!
For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?
(As a projectile form’d, impell’d, passing a certain line, still keeps on,
So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by the past.)
Passage O soul to India!
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables.
Not you alone proud truths of the world,
Nor you alone ye facts of modern science,
But myths and fables of eld, Asia’s, Africa’s fables,
The far-darting beams of the spirit, the unloos’d dreams,
The deep diving bibles and legends,
The daring plots of the poets, the elder religions;
O you temples fairer than lilies pour’d over by the rising sun!
O you fables spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting
to heaven!
You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d with gold!
Towers of fabled immortal fashion’d from mortal dreams!
You too I welcome and fully the same as the rest!
You too with joy I sing.
Passage to India!
Lo, soul, seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann’d, connected by network,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
A worship new I sing,
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,
Your engineers, you architects, machinists, yours,
You, not for trade or transportation only,
But in God’s name, and for thy sake O soul.
Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
From: Passage to India
Buddha
Having found no self that is not other, The seeker must find that there is no other that is not self, So that in the absence of both other and self, There may be known the perfect peace, Of the presence of absolute absence. "The Tenth Man" by Wei Wu Wei Having found no self that is not other, The seeker must find that there is no other that is not self, So that in the absence of both other and self, There may be known the perfect peace, Of the presence of absolute absence. "The Tenth Man"
Wind On The Hill
No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.
It’s flying from somewhere
As fast as it can,
I couldn’t keep up with it,
Not if I ran.
But if I stopped holding
The string of my kite,
It would blow with the wind
For a day and a night.
And then when I found it,
Wherever it blew,
I should know that the wind
Had been going there too.
So then I could tell them
Where the wind goes…
But where the wind comes from
Nobody knows.
A.A. Milne
How Could a Love Fall
What could have caused your grip to weaken
that allowed creation to be?
How could a lover fall to his death
from the arms of infinite
strength?
How active you are in the mind sustaining such a great wall
that the sun can cast a frightening shadow
the world believes.
No one has ever really known sadness. No real God
would ever allow pain.
How then can a heart feel it is broken and in need
if we are held in the arms of infinite
compassion and
strength?
That mirror you (God) stand before –
we need to gaze into it also.
That name you called Beloved
as I fell from your lips –
I suffer
because I did not quite
hear it;
so tell me again dear One
so clear:
I am
you.
- Hafiz
Version: Daniel Ladinsky
from Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
The Way Through The Woods
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods….
But there is no road through the woods.
- Rudyard Kipling
A Song About Myself
I.
There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quiet be-
He took
In his knapsack
A book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels,
A slight cap
For night cap,
A hair brush,
Comb ditto,
New stockings
For old ones
Would split O!
This knapsack
Tight at’s back
He rivetted close
And followed his nose
To the north,
To the north,
And follow’d his nose
To the north.
II.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry-
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a pen
Big as ten
In the other,
And away
In a pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountains
And ghostes
And postes
And witches
And ditches
And wrote
In his coat
When the weather
Was cool,
Fear of gout,
And without
When the weather
Was warm-
Och the charm
When we choose
To follow one’s nose
To the north,
To the north,
To follow one’s nose
To the north!
III.
There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He kept little fishes
In washing tubs three
In spite
Of the might
Of the maid
Nor afraid
Of his Granny-good-
He often would
Hurly burly
Get up early
And go
By hook or crook
To the brook
And bring home
Miller’s thumb,
Tittlebat
Not over fat,
Minnows small
As the stall
Of a glove,
Not above
The size
Of a nice
Little baby’s
Little fingers-
O he made
‘Twas his trade
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle-
A kettle
Of fish a pretty kettle
A kettle!
IV.
There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see-
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red,
That lead
Was as weighty,
That fourscore
Was as eighty,
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England-
So he stood in his shoes
And he wonder’d,
He wonder’d,
He stood in his
Shoes and he wonder’d.
- John Keats
Belief
Forever nameless
Forever unknown
Forever unconceived
Forever unrepresented
yet forever felt in the soul.
By: D.H.Lawrence
Stop Crying
You been down
to the bottom with a bad man, babe,
But you're back where you belong.
Go get me my pistol, babe,
Honey, I can't tell right from wrong.
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Baby, please stop crying.
You know, I know, the sun will always shine
So baby, please stop crying 'cause it's tearing up my mind.
Go down to the river, babe,
Honey, I will meet you there.
Go down to the river, babe,
Honey, I will pay your fare.
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Baby, please stop crying.
You know, I know, the sun will always shine
So baby, please stop crying 'cause it's tearing up my mind.
If you're looking for assistance, babe,
Or if you just want some company
Or if you just want a friend you can talk to,
Honey, come and see about me.
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Baby, please stop crying.
You know, I know, the sun will always shine
So baby, please stop crying 'cause it's tearing up my mind.
You been hurt so many times
And I know what you're thinking of.
Well, I don't have to be no doctor, babe,
To see that you're madly in love.
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Baby, please stop crying.
You know, I know, the sun will always shine
So baby, please stop crying 'cause it's tearing up my mind.
Bob Dylan
copyright © 1978 Special Rider Music
Only you
I choose among the entire world.
Is it fair of you
letting me be unhappy?
My heart is a pen in your hand.
It is all up to you
to write me happy or sad.
I see only what you reveal
and live as you say.
All my feelings have the color
you desire to paint.
From the beginning to the end,
no one but you.
Please make my future
better than the past.
When you hide I change
to a Godless person,
and when you appear,
I find my faith.
Don't expect to find
any more in me
than what you give.
Don't search for
hidden pockets because
I've shown you that
all I have is all you gave.
Rumi
Trans. Nader Khalili
From "The Duplications"
I
One night in Venice, near the Grand Canal,
A lovely girl was sitting by her stoop,
Sixteen years old, Elizabeth Gedall,
When, suddenly, a giant ice-cream scoop
Descended from the clouded blue corral
Of heaven and scooped her skyward with a loop-
The-loopy motion, which the gods of Venice
Saw, and, enraged, they left off cosmic tennis
And plotted their revenge. They thought some outer
Space denizen or monster had decided
To take this child, perhaps who cared about her
And wished to spare her heart a world divided,
Or else who wanted to hug, kiss, and clout her,
And, lust upwelling, the right time had bided,
Or something such—so thought, at least, the gods of
Her native city, famed for bees and matzoh.
Venice, Peru, of course, is where it happened,
A city modeled on the Italian one
Which was all paid for by Commander Papend,
A wealthy Yugoslav who liked his fun.
The Com had sexual urges large as Lapland
And was as set for action as a gun
In madman's hands who hates the world around him—
But Com was filled with love, his heart all pounding!
And so he'd made this North Italian jewel,
Canals and palaces on every side,
An urban re-creation, not renewal,
A daring lust's restatement of life's pride;
Huge bumboats carrying marble, masks, and fuel
Clogged South American streams, till Nature cried
"Some madman's building Venice in Peru!
Abomination beneath the sky's blue!"
In protest of his act, waves shook the earth:
Shock and resentment over this new Venice!
And Central South America gave birth
To hideous monstrous bees, so huge disfenes-
Tration would result when their great girth
Against some building window hurled its menace!
So, windowless new Venice had to be.
But there was one thing that could stop a bee
Of overwhelming size: a matzoh placard
Placed on the shoreside gilding of the house.
It must of course be large, huge as the Packard
Driven for Canada Dry by Mickey Mouse
Attempting to establish the world's record;
Minnie at his side, and Gabby Grouse,
A brand-new character who's been invented
Since Disney's death—they think he'd have consented.
Walt Disney dead! And Salvador Dalí lives!
Paul Éluard gone, and Aragon still alive!
How strange the breathing tickets that fate gives—
Bees dance to show, when entering the hive,
Which way best flowers are, but are like sieves
To death's mysterious force. Oh you who drive
The car, stop speeding; breathe a little longer.
Create, and make us gladder now and stronger!
As Papend did by carrying out his plan
"Venice in South America," an almost
Perfectly accurate copy. Yet one can
Discern things here and there I think would gall most
Other Venetians: bees and the whitish tan
Enormous matzoh placards which some tall ghost
Might use for palace walls. O strange piazzas
Of South America, deranged by matzohs!
How was it known, you ask me, that the busy
Bees would stop marauding if confronted
With matzoh placards? Well, it makes bees dizzy
To look at matzoh. If more details are wanted,
See Matzoh-Loving Bees by E. McTizzy
Where all's explained: the stinger's slightly stunted
Or blunted, I forget, by the bakery pleating
Of the matzoh, made in this case not for eating
But civil defense. So with this problem over
Com could proceed to build his city and bring
Into it thousands of young girls fresh as clover
And beautiful as an ancient Mexican ring
With jewels red as the hat of Smoky Stover,
And to these girls he offered everything
Our sad world can provide: drink, clothes, and money,
And, when he could, his love. Like some wild bunny
He made love over fifty times a day,
Never becoming sated, bored, or sleepy.
"It's just life's great experience," he'd say,
"That's all! Preferring other things seems creepy
When I can sweep into the disarray
Of limbs and golden hair, then plunge in deep. We
Live but once: let us not live in vain.
Sailors, come home! Here is life's bounding main!"
And, saying so, he'd lunge into some beauty
And, panting, pass a half an hour or so
Coming and crying "Ah, this is my duty!
Someone must make the human radar glow
Continually, or else the Cosmic Cutie
Will kill us! This I absolutely know!"
And so he'd theorize and love inceasingly
With pleasure growing in his soul increasingly.
Kenneth Koch (1925-2002)
"A house is made with walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but
forgetting where you heard it.
Laurence J Peter
How
can we know the Dancer from the Dance. WB Yeats
Leaves
of Grass
Do not go
where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a
trail. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
"When a man is willing and eager,
the gods join in."
- Aeschylus
Nothing
makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make
the latitudes and longitudes.
Henry David Thoreau
Fortune sides with he who dares. ~ Virgil
Self Portrait
I lived between my heart and my head,
like a married couple who can't get along.
I lived between my left arm, which is swift
and sinister, and my right, which is righteous.
I lived between a laugh and a scowl,
and voted against myself, a two-party system.
My left leg dawdled or danced along,
my right cleaved to the straight and narrow.
My left shoulder was like a stripper on vacation,
my right stood upright as a Roman soldier.
Let's just say that my left side was the organ
donor and leave my private parts alone,
but as for my eyes, which are two shades
of brown, well, Dionysus, meet Apollo.
Look at Eve raising her left eyebrow
while Adam puts his right foot down.
No one expected it to survive,
but divorce seemed out of the question.
I suppose my left hand and my right hand
will be clasped over my chest in the coffin
and I'll be reconciled at last,
I'll be whole again.
Edward Hirsch
It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Négres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 spot
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing 1959
Frank O'Hara'
A Phone Call to
the Future
1.
Who says science fiction
is only set in the future?
After a while, the story that looks least
believable is the past.
The console television with three channels.
Black-and-white picture. Manual controls:
the dial clicks when you turn it, like the oven.
You have to get up and walk somewhere to change things.
You have to leave the house to mail a letter.
Waiting for letters. The phone rings: you're not there.
You'll never know. The phone rings, and you are,
there's only one, you have to stand or sit
plugged into it, a cord
confines you to the room where everyone
is also having dinner.
Hang up the phone. The family's having dinner.
Waiting for dinner. You bake things in the oven.
Or Mother does. That's how it always is.
She sets the temperature: it takes an hour.
The patience of the past.
The typewriter forgives its own mistakes.
You type on top sheet, carbon, onion skin.
The third is yours, a record of typeovers,
clotted and homemade-looking, like the seams
on dresses cut out on the dining table.
The sewing machine. The wanting to look nice.
Girls who made their dresses for the dance.
2.
This was the Fifties: as far back as I go.
Some of it lasted decades.
That's why I remember it so clearly.
Also because, as I lie in a motel room
sometime in 2004, scrolling
through seventy-seven channels on my back
(there ought to be more—this is a cheap motel room),
I can revisit evidence, hear it ringing.
My life is movies, and tells itself in phones.
The rotary phone, so dangerously languid
and loud when the invalid must dial the police.
The killer coming up the stairs can hear it.
The detective ducks into a handy phone booth
to call his sidekick. Now at least there's touch tone.
But wait, the killer's waiting in the booth
to try to strangle him with the handy cord.
The cordless phone, first noted in the crook
of the neck of the secretary
as she pulls life-saving files.
Files come in drawers, not in the computer.
Then funny computers, big and slow as ovens.
Now the reporter's running with a cell phone
larger than his head,
if you count the antenna.
They're Martians, all of these people,
perhaps the strangest being the most recent.
I bought that phone. I thought it was so modern.
Phones shrinking year by year, as stealthily
as children growing.
3.
It's the end of the world.
Or people are managing, after the conflagration.
After the epidemic. The global thaw.
Everyone's stunned. Nobody combs his hair.
Or it's a century later, and although
New York is gone, and love, and everyone
is a robot or a clone, or some combination,
you have to admire the technology of the future.
When you want to call somebody, you just think it.
Your dreams are filmed. Without a camera.
You can scroll through the actual things that happened,
and nobody disagrees. No memory.
No point of view. None of it necessary.
Past the time when the standard thing to say
is that, no matter what, the human endures.
That whatever humans make of themselves
is therefore human.
Past the transitional time
when humanity as we know it was there to say that.
Past the time we meant well but were wrong.
It's less than that, not anymore a concept.
Past the time when mourning was a concept.
Of course, such a projection,
however much I believe it, is sentimental—
belief being sentimental.
The thought of a woman born
in the fictional Fifties.
That's what I mean. We were Martians. Nothing's stranger
than our patience, our humanity, inhumanity.
Our worrying about robots. Earplug cell phones
that make us seem to be walking about like loonies
talking to ourselves. Perhaps we are.
All of it was so quaint. And I was there.
Poetry was there; we tried to write it.
Mary Jo Salter
The Beauty of a Husband
Coward.
I know.
Betrayer.
Yes.
Opportunist.
I can see why you would think that.
Slave.
Go on.
Faithless lecherous child.
Okay.
Liar.
What can I say.
Liar.
But.
Liar.
But please.
Destroyer liar sadist fake.
Please.
Please what.
Save me.
Who else do you say that to.
No one.
No one he says.
Have courage.
You fool.
Oh my love.
Stop.
Listen I only wanted one thing to be worthy of you.
Are you mad.
No yes it doesn't matter.
You live a counterfeit life.
Yes yes but for you.
Me.
These are my trophies my campaigns my honors I lay them before you.
The women.
Yes.
The lying.
Yes.
The shame.
No there is no shame.
The shame I feel.
There is no shame except in retreat.
Ah.
And I never retreat.
I guess not.
Be my ally.
What are we talking about now.
If you wish not to go on with this I'll stop.
Don't stop.
I've said everything before.
What's wrong with us.
Fog of war.
Why are we at war.
Because I don't want to give up.
Your dreams are a mess.
They are my masterpiece.
God help us then.
God has no place in war and the folly of it well one has only to persevere
in folly and
the world will soon enough call it success.
No it's not going to clear up is it or make sense or come out into the open
somewhere
this welter of disorder and pain is our life.
Yes.
Your so-called freedom.
Our so-called love.
Anne Carson
The Day Lady Died
It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Négres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 spot
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
John Updike 1959
Tell Me Why This Hurry
The lindens are blossoming the lindens have lost their blossoms
and this flowery procession moves without any restraint
Where are you hurrying lilies of the valley jasmines
petunias lilacs irises roses and peonies
Mondays and Tuesdays Wednesdays and Fridays
nasturtiums and gladioli zinnias and lobelias
yarrow dill goldenrod and grasses
flowery Mays and Junes and Julys and Augusts
lakes of flowers seas of flowers meadows
holy fires of fern one-day grails
Tell me why this hurry where are you rushing
in a cherry blizzard a deluge of greenness
all with the wind racing in one direction only
crowns proud yesterday today fallen into sand
eternal desires passions mistresses of destruction
Julia Hartwig
Author Unknown
God is in every tomorrow,
Life with its changes may come,
He is behind and before me,
While in the distance shines home.
What Am I After All
What am I after all but a child, pleas'd
with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over;
I stand apart to hear --it never tires me.
To your name also;
Did you think there was nothing but two or three
pronunciations in the sound of your name?
Walt Whitman 1860 Leaves of Grass
Three crisscrossed daffodils
faint lamps in the rubble
where without any warning
I'm shattered by your absence
wondering will I always
blunder into this emotion
so large and mute it has no name
—not grief longing pain
for those are only its suburbs
its slightly distracting cousins—
summoned just now by these
frilled blossoms
butter yellow horns
on lemon yellow stars
indifferent innocent
charging in place
advance guard of a season
when I will join you.
David Young
"Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful."
- Albert Schweitzer
"Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful."
- Albert Schweitzer
When I remember your love
I weep, and when I hear people
talking of you, something in my chest,
where nothing much happens now,
moves as in sleep
Rumi
When I remember your love
I weep, and when I hear people
talking of you, something in my chest,
where nothing much happens now,
moves as in sleep
Rumi
Ah, God, the way your little finger moved
As you thrust a bare arm backward
And made play with your hair
And a comb a silly gilt comb
Ah, God—that I should suffer
Because of the way a little finger moved.
Stephen Crane
Our life is like a garden,
That needs constant, loving care,
There are woes that doth beset us,
Things that make life seem unfair.
We need so much
cultivation,
To produce a steady start,
With a vast supply of sunshine,
That will warm the coldest heart.
When wind and rain
approach us,
We should grip with all our might,
The water is greatly needed,
For our growth and sturdy height.
Our deeds are bright as
flowers,
And our prayers help clear the way,
Every kindness that is rendered,
Will help make a brighter day.
So tend your garden daily,
Remove all the weeds,
Then, look for God's assistance,
To bless and meet your needs.
Frances Culp Wolfe
As little by little air steals water, so praise
dries up and evaporates with foolish people
who refuse to change. Like cold stone you sit on
a cynic steals body heat. He doesn't feel
the sun. Jesus wasn't running from actual people.
He was teaching in a new way.
Christ is the population of the world,
and every
object as well.
There is no room for hypocrisy.
Why use bitter soup for healing when sweet water is everywhere.
Rumi from Jesus on the Lean Donkey
Translated Coleman Barks with John Moyne
Autumn Gold
Today, morning, walked in golden sunlight,
Golden thoughts and prayers,
Touched autumn golden leaf,
Breathed in golden fall smells,
A golden memory of childhood days,
rolling in golden leaves, walking in golden woods,
Golden memories of friends given to share the path of
life,
Memories of lazy drives and hikes in the Carolina
and
North Georgia Mountains viewing God's canvas of many shades of gold,
sprinkled with His colors of red and green,
gray and browns, with backdrop
of Carolina Blue and puffy white clouds.
Golden memories of the one He gave as my wife,
Golden memories of the blessed children He gave my life,
Felt warmth in my heart from golden wedding ring on my
finger.
Golden memories of loved
ones,
gone on to Heavens Shores through that veil
into the arms of The Eternal God.
Imagined golden streaks of light filling the night sky
with
prayers sent to Heaven above, and streaming returning streaks
of
golden light with answers from God and His love.
RCH
Happy 39th
Wedding Anniversary to
My Most Precious Gift in this life!
My Wife, Cheryl
11-10-1963 / 11-10-2002
TOMORROW
When tomorrow starts without me
And I'm not there to see
If the sun should rise and find your eyes
All filled with tears for me
I wish so much you wouldn't cry
The way you did today
While thinking of the many things
We didn't get to say.
I know how much you love me
As much as I love you
And each time that you think of me
I know you'll miss me too
But when tomorrow starts without me
Please try to understand
That an angel came and called my name
And took me by the hand
And said my place was ready
In heaven far above
And that I'd have to leave behind
All those I dearly love.
But when I walked through heaven's gates
I felt so much at home
When God looked down and smiled at me
From His great golden throne
He said "This is eternity
And all I've promised you
Today--for life on earth is past
But here it starts anew.
I promise no tomorrow
For today will always last
And since each day's the same way
There's no longing for the past."
So when tomorrow starts without me
Don't think we're far apart...
For every time you think of me
I'm right here in your heart!!
Author Unknown
Look
for it in the sunshine,
Look for it in flowers,
Look for it in the clear blue skies above --
Look for it in kindness
And special, happy hours --
The miracle,
the wonder of God's love!
The Package of Seed
I paid a dime for a package of seed
And the clerk tossed them out with a flip.
'' We got them assorted for every man's need.''
He said with a smile on his lip.
''Pansies and poppies and asters and peas!
Ten cents a package! and pick as you please!''
Now seeds are just dimes to the man in the store,
And dimes are the things that he needs.
And I've been to buy them in seasons before,
But have thought of them as merely as seeds;
But it passed through my mind as I took them this time,
''You have purchased a miracle here for a dime.
''You've a dime's worth of power witch no man can create,
''You've a dime's worth of life in your hand!
''You've a dimes' worth of mystery, destiny, fate,
That the wisest cannot understand.
In this bright little package , now isn't it odd?
You've a dime's worth of something known only to God.''
Edgar
A. Guest
To laugh is to risk
appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk rejection.
To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk
nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow
or love.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave.
He has forfeited his freedom.
Only a person who takes risks is free.
Author Unknown
God hath not promised
Skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways
All our lives through;
God hath not promised
Sun without rain,
Joy with sorrow
Peace without pain.
But God hath promised Strength for the day,
Rest for the labor,
Light for the way,
Grace for the trials,
Help from above,
Unfailing sympathy,
Undying Love.
Annie Johnson Flynt
"Oh thou, by whom we come to God--
The Life, the Truth, the Way;
The path of prayer Thyself has trod;
Lord, teach us how to pray."
James Montgomery
WELCOME OVER THE DOOR OF AN OLD INN
Hail Guest! We ask not what thou art;
If Friend, we greet thee, hand and heart;
If Stranger, such no longer be;
If Foe, our love shall conquer thee.
Author Unknown
THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When its love is done.
Francis W Bourdillon
Thank God I'm Alive
Thank God I'm alive!
That the skies are blue,
That a new day dawns
For me and for you.
The sunlight glistens
On field and on tree,
And the house wren sings
To his mate and to me;
The whole world glows
With a heavenly glee!
I know there are heart-aches,
A world full of strife,
But thank God, O thank God,
Thank God just for life!
Robert Spaulding Cushman
I wondered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside a lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
'I wandered lonely as a cloud'.
William Wordsworth
My Garden
We all must tend
the garden of life
That flourishes in our hearts,
Weeding, Feeding, Reaping, Sowing
The flora therein by parts.
For each part the gardener decides
What its fate will be:
To run rampant where the flower may choose
Or be carried off with the breeze.
To you I said, "Run rampant and free!"
Your roots spread and grew.
While the aroma wafted up, we heard
The breeze whisper, "I love you."
Talk not of strength, till your heart has known
And fought with weakness through long hours alone.
Talk not of virtue, till your conquering soul
Has met temptation and gained full control.
Boast not of garments, all unscorched by sin,
till you have passed unscathed through fires within.
Author Unknown
THE SCULPTOR
I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day,
And as my fingers pressed it, still
It bent and yielded to my will.
I came again, when days were passed,
The bit of clay was hard at last,
The form I gave it, still it bore,
but I could change that form no more.
Then I took a piece of living clay
And gently formed it, day by day
And molded with my power and art,
A young child's soft and yielding heart.
I came again when years were gone,
It was a man I looked upon
He still that early impress bore,
And I could change it, nevermore.
Author Unknown
I said a prayer for you today
And know God must have heard--
I felt the answer in my heart
Although He spoke no word.
I didn't ask for wealth or fame,
I knew you wouldn't mind,
I asked Him to send treasures
Of a far more lasting kind.
I asked that He'd be near you
At the start of each new day
To grant you health and blessings
And friends to share your way.
I asked for happiness for you
In all things great and small--
But it was for His loving care
I prayed the most of all--Anonymous
SOMEWHERE
Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours
For one lone soul, another lonely soul-
Each chasing each through all the weary hours,
And meeting strangely at one sudden goal;
Then blend they-like green leaves with golden flowers,
Into one beautiful and perfect whole-
And life's long night is ended, and the way
Lies open onward to eternal day.
Sir Edwin Arnold
MISS YOU
I miss you in the morning, dear,
When all the world is new;
I know the day can bring no joy
Because it brings not you.
I miss the well-loved voice of you,
Your tender smile for me,
The charm of you, the joy of your
Unfailing sympathy.
The world is full of folks, it's true,
But there was only one of you.
I miss you at the noontide, dear;
The crowded city street
Seems but a desert now, I walk
In solitude complete.,
I miss your hand beside my own
The light touch of your hand,
The quick gleam in the eyes of you
So sure to understand.
The world is full of folks, it's true,
But there was only one of you.
I miss you in the evening dear,
When daylight fades away;
I miss the sheltering arms of you
To rest me from the day,
I try to think I see you yet
There where the firelight gleams-
Weary at last, I sleep, and still
I miss you in my dreams.
THE WORLD IS FULL OF FOLKS, IT'S TRUE
BUT THERE WAS ONLY ONE OF YOU.
Author Unknown
SHOULD YOU GO FIRST
Should you go first and I remain
To walk the road alone,
I'll live in memory's garden, dear,
With happy days we've known.
In Spring I'll watch for roses red
When fades the lilac blue,
In early Fall when brown leaves call
I'll catch a glimpse of you.
Should you go first and I remain
For battles to be fought,
Each thing you've touched along the way
Will be a hallowed spot.
I'll hear your voice, I'll see your smile,
Though blindly I may grope,
The memory of your helping hand
Will buoy me on with hope.
Should you go first and I remain
To finish with the scroll,
No length'ning shadows shall creep in
To make this life seem droll.
We've known so much of happiness,
We've had our cup of joy
And memory is one gift of God
That death cannot destroy.
Should you go first and I remain,
One thing I'd have you do;
Walk slowly down that long, lone path,
For soon I'll follow you.
I'll want to know each step you take
That I may walk the same,
For someday, down that lonely road,
You'll hear me call your name.
Albert Rowswell
Day is done.
Gone the sun.
From the lakes,
From the hills,
From the sky,
All is well.
Safely rest.
God is nigh.
Words to TAPS
A house is built of logs and stone,
of tiles and posts and piers;
A home is built of loving deeds that
stand a thousand years.
Author Unknown
As I Walked Out One Evening
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.
'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.
'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.
'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
W. H. Auden
"This world has many wonders,
God's many vistas grand;
But none can ever rival
The beauty of Mother's hands."
Wilma Heffelfinger
Song of Nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.
I hid in the solar glory,
I am dumb in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In slumber I am strong.
No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of Life,
And pour the deluge still;
And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the rarest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.
And many a thousand summers
My apples ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.
I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The planting of the coal.
And thefts from satellites and rings
And broken stars I drew,
And out of spent and aged things
I formed the world anew;
What time the gods kept carnival,
Tricked out in star and flower,
And in cramp elf and saurian forms
They swathed their too much power.
Time and Thought were my surveyors,
They laid their courses well,
They boiled the sea, and baked the layers
Or granite, marl, and shell.
But he, the man-child glorious,--
Where tarries he the while?
The rainbow shines his harbinger,
The sunset gleams his smile.
My boreal lights leap upward,
Forthright my planets roll,
And still the man-child is not born,
The summit of the whole.
Must time and tide forever run?
Will never my winds go sleep in the west?
Will never my wheels which whirl the sun
And satellites have rest?
Too much of donning and doffing,
Too slow the rainbow fades,
I weary of my robe of snow,
My leaves and my cascades;
I tire of globes and races,
Too long the game is played;
What without him is summer's pomp,
Or winter's frozen shade?
I travail in pain for him,
My creatures travail and wait;
His couriers come by squadrons,
He comes not to the gate.
Twice I have moulded an image,
And thrice outstretched my hand,
Made one of day, and one of night,
And one of the salt sea-sand.
One in a Judaean manger,
And one by Avon stream,
One over against the mouths of Nile,
And one in the Academe.
I moulded kings and saviours,
And bards o'er kings to rule;--
But fell the starry influence short,
The cup was never full.
Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more,
And mix the bowl again;
Seethe, fate! the ancient elements,
Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.
Let war and trade and creeds and song
Blend, ripen race on race,
The sunburnt world a man shall breed
Of all the zones, and countless days.
No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
My oldest force is good as new,
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
Gives back the bending heavens in dew.
The Creation James Weldon Johnson
And God stepped out on space, And he looked around and said: I'm lonely-- I'll make me a world. And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred midnight's Down in a cypress swamp. Then God smiled, And the light broke, And the darkness rolled up on one side, And the light stood shining on the other, And God said: That's good! Then God reached out and took the light in his hands, And God rolled the light around in his hands Until he made the sun; And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens. And the light that was left from making the sun God gathered it up in a shining ball And flung it against the darkness, Spangling the night with the moon and stars. Then down between The darkness and the light He hurled the world; And God said: That's good! Then God himself stepped down-- And the sun was on his right hand, And the moon was on his left; The stars were clustered about his head, And the earth was under his feet. And God walked, and where he trod His footsteps hollowed the valleys out And bulged the mountains up. Then he stopped and looked and saw That the earth was hot and barren. So God stepped over to the edge of the world And he spat out the seven seas-- He batted his eyes, and the lightning's flashed-- He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled-- And the waters above the earth came down, The cooling waters came down. Then the green grass sprouted, And the little red flowers blossomed, The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky, And the oak spread out his arms, The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground, And the rivers ran down to the sea; And God smiled again, And the rainbow appeared, And curled itself around his shoulder. Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand Over the sea and over the land, And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth! And quicker than God could drop his hand, Fishes and fowls And beasts and birds Swam the rivers and the seas, Roamed the forests and the woods, And split the air with their wings. And God said: That's good! Then God walked around, And God looked around On all that he had made. He looked at his sun, And he looked at his moon, And he looked at his little stars; He looked on his world With all its living things, And God said: I'm lonely still. Then God sat down-- On the side of a hill where he could think; By a deep, wide river he sat down; With his head in his hands, God thought and thought, Till he thought: I'll make me a man! Up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay; And by the bank of the river He kneeled him down; And there the great God Almighty Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand; This great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till he shaped it in is his own image; Then into it he blew the breath of life, And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen.
Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.
"Summons" by Robert Francis
A Flower Given To My Daughter
Frail the white rose and frail are
her hands that gave
Whose soul is sere and paler
Than time's wan wave
Rosefrail and fair--yet frailest
A wonder wild
In gentle eyes thou veilest,
My blueveined child.
Triest, 1913
James Joyce
In the middle of the night,
My bedroom washed in moonlight
And outside
The faint hush-hushing
Of an ebbing tide,
I see Venus
Close to
The waning moon.
I hear the bubbling hoot
Of a playful owl.
Pierrot's purrs
Ripple under my hand,
And all this is bathed
In the scent of roses
By my bed
Where there are always
Books and flowers.
In the middle of the night.
The bliss of being alive!
"Bliss" by May Sarton
It's Up to You
One song can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream.
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring.
One smile begins a friendship,
One handclasp lifts a soul.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal.
One vote can change a nation,
One sunbeam lights a room,
One candle wipes out darkness
One laugh will conquer gloom.
One step must start each journey,
One word must start each prayer.
One hope will raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care.
One voice can speak with wisdom,
One heart can know what's true,
One life can make the difference,
You see, IT'S UP TO YOU
Author Unknown
You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself
floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the
Heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive
yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and
more than so, because men are in it who are every
one sole heirs as well as you.
- W.J. Turner
The garden of
Love
is green without
limit
and yields many
fruits
other than sorrow
and joy.
Love is beyond either
condition:
without spring,
without autumn,
it is always fresh.
-- Jelaluddin Rumi
"It wasn't that long ago
that He'd spoken these stars into being
and this woman's life was just a thought in His mind.
He'd smiled down on her birth
and entered her name in His pages,
perhaps with an asterisk,
denoting plans too sacred to be spoken,
but pondered in His heart.
Now, newborn,
in wide-eyed wonder,
He gazes up at His creation.
His hand that hurled the world,
holds tight to His mother's finger.
Holy light spills across her face
and she weeps silent, wondering tears
to know she holds the One
Who has so long held her."
-Joan Rae Mills
Being First
Being first is not my style
I like to stop and feel awhile
Under the moon's thin-lipped smile
I find a peace that lasts for miles.
By myself I'm not alone
No TV guide, no telephone
The quite noise in the trees
cuts my bonds, puts my mind at ease.
You know my journey never ends,
Long as I am I will be traveling
To know myself and know my friends
To heal some hurts and make amends
Down this rocky trail I find
The roughest path is my mind
Down this rocky trail I find the
The roughest path is in my mind.
Dan Baker
To laugh often and much,
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends,
to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others,
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
O GIFT of God! O perfect day :
Whereon shall no man work, but play ;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!
Through every fibber of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.
I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies ;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon.
Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.
Blow, winds ! and waft through all the
rooms
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms !
Blow, winds ! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach !
O Life and Love ! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song !
O heart of man ! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free ?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The little plans I tried to
carry
Have failed
O' Dear God.
But, I will not sorrow
I will pause a little while
And try again tomorrow.
Anushree Karnani
I was born to catch dragons in their dens
And pick flowers
To tell tales and laugh away the morning
To drift and dream like a lazy stream
And walk barefoot across sunshine days.
James Kavanaugh
"Sunshine Days and Foggy Nights
To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk rejection.
To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love.
Chained by his certitude's, he is a slave.
He has forfeited his freedom.
Only a person who takes risks is free.
"The Dilemma," Author Unknown
If I could, I'd comb the sky
and collect the stars,
quickly pile them into a basket
until it overflowed with silvery light.
And then I'd give the basket to you,
because all things precious
and beautiful
should be yours today.
Author Unknown
