Books

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

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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

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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

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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.

Evening Poetry, July 11

KimLeave a comment

Grown-Up

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Was it for this that I uttered prayers,

And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,

That now, domestic as a plate,

I should retire at half-past eight?

You can find this poem in Collected Poems.

Evening Poetry, July 10

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The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
this grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

You can find this poem in Devotions.

Evening Poetry, July 9

KimLeave a comment

Vegetables

by Eleanor Farjeon

The country vegetables scorn

To lie about in shops,

They stand upright as they were born

In neatly-patterned crops;

And when you want your dinner you

Don’t buy it from a shelf,

You find lettuce fresh with dew

And pull it for yourself;

You pick an apronful of peas

And shell them on the spot.

You cut a cabbage, if you please,

To pop into the pot.

The folk who their potatoes buy

From sacks before they sup,

Miss half of the potato’s joy,

And that’s to dig it up.

You can find this in Favorite Poems Old and New.