The Man
Watching By Rainer Maria Rilke
I can tell by
the way the trees beat, after
so many dull
days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is
coming,
and I hear the
far-off fields say things
I can’t bear
without a friend,
I can’t love
without a sister.
The storm, the
shifter of shapes, drives on
across the
woods and across time,
and the world
looks as if it had no age:
the landscape
like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness
and weight and eternity.
What we choose
to fight is so tiny!
What fights
with us is so great!
If only we
would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by
some immense storm,
we would become
strong too, and not need names.
When we win
it’s with small things,
and the triumph
itself makes us small.
What is
extraordinary and eternal
does not want
to be bent by us.
I mean the
Angel who appeared
to the
wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the
wrestlers’ sinews
grew long like
metal strings,
he felt them
under his fingers
like chords of
deep music.
Whoever was
beaten by this Angel
(who often
simply declined the fight)
went away proud
and strengthened
and great from
that harsh hand,
that kneaded
him as if to change his shape.
Winning does
not tempt that man.
This is how he
grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly
greater beings.
Fearing Paris by Marsha Truman Cooper
Suppose that what you fear
could be trapped
and held in Paris.
Then you would have
the courage to go
everywhere in the world.
All the directions of the compass
open to you,
except the degrees east or west
of true north
that lead to Paris.
Still, you wouldn't dare
put your toes
smack dab on the city limit line.
You're not really willing
to stand on a mountainside,
miles away,
and watch the Paris lights
come up at night.
Just to be on the safe side
you decide to stay completely
out of France.
But then the danger
seems too close
even to those boundaries,
and you feel
the timid part of you
covering the whole globe again.
You need the kind of friend
who learns your secret and says,
"See Paris First."
“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don't go back to sleep!”
Rumi
God picks up the reed-flute world
and blows.
Each note is a need coming through
one of us, a passion, a longing pain.
Remember the lips where the wind
breath originated, and let your note be clear.
Don’t try to end it.
Be your note.
I’ll show you when it’s enough.
Go up on the roof at night, in this
city of the soul.
Let everyone climb on their roofs
and sing their notes!
Sing loud!” Rumi
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and
bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is
called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful
stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and
be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It
answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back
again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to
Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is
lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still.
The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find
you.
~ David Wagoner ~
Martha Postlewaite
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so
worth of rescue.
Haifez
Don't surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,
My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on
your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to
let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair,
yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile the
sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over
the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the
wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you
are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls
to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your
place
in the family of things.
— Mary Oliver
The Journey
Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the
light again
painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the
heavens
so you can find
the one lie
already
written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
small, bright
and indescribable
wedge
of freedom
in your own heart.
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks
left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of
your life.
You are not leaving
you are arriving.
— David Whyte, in The House of Belonging
Enough
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these
words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and
again
until now.
Until now.
— David Whyte, in Where Many Rivers Meet
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can
find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to
recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can
see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be
free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which
you belong.
— David Whyte, in The House of Belonging
What I Must Tell Myself (excerpt)
When you are alone
you must do anything
to believe
and
when you are
abandoned
you must speak
with everything
you know
and everything
you are
in order
to belong.
— David Whyte, in The House of Belonging
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in
fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my
living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my
heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my
significance
to live
so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as
blossom
and that which came
to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
— Dawna Markova
Kissed
by the promise of a clear night
The moon rays weave through the trees
Flowing, unbroken, painting a fabric of magic on the moss tapestry
Solid granite rock of ages underfoot
Stones thrust against the sky of unbelievable full and rich blue
Ever changing like the mist swirling up one moment and returning as dew drops the next
Endless possibilities of light and color
Sounds so quiet and so muted and yet, so piercing and clear in the air
Knowing that all is there as it should be and has been and will be
Stewarts, visitors, care takers, honored nesters, held, embraced, caressed, enfolded, resting, being
The moon rays weave through the trees
Flowing, unbroken, painting a fabric of magic on the moss tapestry
Solid granite rock of ages underfoot
Stones thrust against the sky of unbelievable full and rich blue
Ever changing like the mist swirling up one moment and returning as dew drops the next
Endless possibilities of light and color
Sounds so quiet and so muted and yet, so piercing and clear in the air
Knowing that all is there as it should be and has been and will be
Stewarts, visitors, care takers, honored nesters, held, embraced, caressed, enfolded, resting, being
by Christiane
Either you
will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door
Adrienne Rich (1962)
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