Month: July 2019

Evening Poetry, July 22

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The Guest House

by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

You can find this poem in The Essential Rumi.

Evening Poetry, July 21

KimLeave a comment

You can find this poem in The Book of A Monastic Life in Rilke’s Book of Hours.

I,51

Only in our doing can we grasp you.

Only with our hands can we illuminate you.

The mind is but a visitor:

it thinks us out of our world.

Each mind fabricates itself.

We sense its limits, for we have made them.

And just when we would flee them, you come

and make yourself an offering.

I don’t want to think a place for you.

Speak to me from everywhere.

Your Gospel can be comprehended

without looking for its source.

When I go toward you

it is with my whole life.

Evening Poetry, July 19

KimLeave a comment

Evening

by Emily Dickinson

The cricket sang,

And set the sun,

And workmen finished, one by one,

Their seam the day upon.

The low grass loaded with dew,

The twilight stood as strangers do

With hat in hand, polite and new,

To stay as if, or go.

A vastness, as a neighbor, came,–

A wisdom with face or name,

A peace, as hemispheres at home,–

And so the night became.

You can find this poem in Hope is the Thing With Feathers.

Evening Poetry, July 18

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For Courage

by John O’Donohue

When the light around lessens
And your thoughts darken until
Your body feels fear turn
Cold as a stone inside,

When you find yourself bereft
Of any belief in yourself
And all you unknowingly
Leaned on has fallen,

When one voice commands
Your whole heart,
And it is raven dark,

Steady yourself and see
That it is your own thinking
That darkens your world.

Search and you will find
A diamond-thought of light,

Know that you are not alone,
And that this darkness has purpose;
Gradually it will school your eyes,
To find the one gift your life requires
Hidden within this night-corner.

Invoke the learning
Of every suffering
You have suffered.

Close your eyes.
Gather all the kindling
About your heart
To create one spark
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark
Of its weight of festered fear.

A new confidence will come alive
To urge you towards higher ground
Where your imagination
will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!

You can find this poem in To Bless The Space Between Us.

Evening Poetry, July 17

KimLeave a comment

As Ripeness Comes

by Rumi

What souls desire arrives.
We are standing up to our necks
in the sacred pool. Majesty is here.

The grains of the earth take in something
they do not understand.

Where did this come from?
It comes from where your longing comes.

From which direction?
As ripeness comes to fruit.

This answer lights a candle
in the chest of anyone who hears.

Most people only look for the way when they hurt.
Pain is a fine path to the unknowable.

But today is different.
Today the quality we call splendor
puts on human clothes, walks through the door,
closes it behind, and sits down with us
in this companionship.

You can find this poem in The Essential Rumi.

Evening Poetry, July 16

KimLeave a comment

Song

by Edith Wharton

Let us be lovers to the end,

O you to whom my soul is given,

Whose smiles have turned this earth to

heaven,

Fast holding hands as we descend

Life’s pathway devious and uneven,

Let us be lovers to the end.

Dear, let us make Time a friend

To bind us closer with his cares,

And though grief strike us unawares

No poisoned shaft that fate can send

Shall wound us through each other’s

prayers,

If we are lovers to the end.

Let us be lovers to the end

And, growing blind as we grow old,

Refuse forever to behold

How age has made the shoulders bend

And Winter blanched the hair’s young gold.

Let us be lovers to the end.

Whichever way our footsteps tend

Be sure that, if we walk together,

They’ll lead to realms of sunny weather,

By shores where quiet waters wend.

At eventide we shall go thither,

If we are lovers to the end.

You can find this poem in the collection Selected Poems of Edith Wharton.

Evening Poetry, July 15

KimLeave a comment

You can find this poem in The Essential Rumi.

The minute I heard my first love story

I started looking for you, not knowing

ho blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.

They’re in each other all along.

Evening Poetry, July 14

KimLeave a comment

From The Book of a Monastic Life in Rilke’s Book of Hours.

I, 17

Because once someone dared

to want you,

I know that we, too, may want you.

When gold is in the mountain

and we’ve ravaged the depths

till we’ve given up digging,

It will be brought forth into day

by the river that mines

the silences of stone.

Even when we don’t desire it,

God is ripening.

Evening Poetry, July 13

KimLeave a comment

The Moon

by Emily Dickinson

The moon was but a chin of gold

A night or two ago,

And now she turns her perfect face

Upon the world below.

Her forehead is of amplest blond;

Her cheek like beryl stone;

Her eye unto the summer dew

The likest I have known.

Her lips of amber never part;

But what must be the smile

Upon her friend she could bestow

Were such her silver will!

And what a privilege to be

But the remotest star!

For certainly her way might pass

Beside your twinkling door.

Her bonnet is the firmament,

The universe her shoe,

The stars the trinkets at her belt,

Her dimities of blue.

You can find this poem in Hope is the Thing With Feathers.

Evening Poetry, July 12

KimLeave a comment

The Willows

by Walter Prichard Eaton

By the little river,

Still and deep and brown,

Grow the graceful willows,

Gently dipping down.

Dipping down and brushing

Everything that floats–

Leaves and logs and fishes,

And the passing boats.

Were they water maidens

In the long ago,

That they lean out sadly

Looking down below?

In the misty twilight

You can see their hair,

Weeping water maidens

That were once so fair.

You can find this poem in the collection Favorite Poems Old and New.