Poem by Rumi from collection The Essential Rumi.
A night full of talking that hurts,
my worst held-back secrets. Everything
has to do with loving and not loving.
This night will pass.
Then we have work to do.
Poetry
Evening Poetry, June 26
VI. from Life
by Emily Dickinson
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
You can find this poem in Hope is the Thing With Feathers.
Evening Poetry, June 25
Guardian Angel
by Rainer Maria Rilke
You are the bird whose wings came
when I wakened in the night and called.
Only with my arms I called, because your name
is like a chasm, a thousand nights deep.
You are the shadows in which I quietly slept,
and your seed devised in me each dream,—
you are the image, but I am the frame
that makes you stand in glittering relief.
What shall I call you? Look, my lips are lame.
You are the beginning that gushes forth,
I am the slow and fearful Amen
that timidly concludes your beauty.
You have often snatched me out of dark rest
when sleep seemed like a grave to me
and like getting lost and fleeing,—
then you raised me out of heart-darknesses
and tried to hoist me onto all towers
like scarlet flags and bunting.
You: who talk of miracles as of common knowledge
and of men and women as of melodies
and of roses: of events
that in your eyes blazingly take place,—
you blessed one, when will you at last name Him
from whose seventh and last day
shards of glory can still be found
on the beating of your wings …
Do I need to ask?
You can find this poem in The Book of Images.
Evening Poetry, June 24
The TrueLove
by David Whyte
There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.
I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,
and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them
and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and taht moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love.
So that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you don’t want to any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs to yours.
You can find this poem in the collection The Sea in You.
Evening Poetry, June 23
A Service of Song
by Emily Dickinson
Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.
Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.
God preaches, — a noted clergyman, —
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I’m going all along!
You can find this in the collection Hope Is The Thing With Feathers.
Evening Poetry, June 22
From “The Turn” by Rumi, found in The Essential Rumi.
Dance, when you’re broken open.
Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.
Evening Poetry, June 21
In A Library
by Emily Dickinson
A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,
His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.
His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;
What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty.
And Sophocles a man;
When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,
He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true;
He lived where dreams were sown.
His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.
You can find this poem and more in the collection Hope Is The Thing With Feathers.
Evening Poetry, June 20
Sorry I’m a bit late tonight! Our internet has been down all day, so Alan just drove with me to our local library so I can use theirs. We’re sitting outside in the car (since it’s now closed) and I’m enjoying being connected again.
This is a section of Rumi’s “The Turn” which you can find in The Essential Rumi.
Some nights stay up till dawn,
as the moon sometimes does for the sun.
Be a full bucket pulled up the dark way
of a well, then lifted out into light.
Evening Poetry, June 19
Mother Nature
by Emily Dickinson
Nature, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest,–
Her admonition mild
In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.
How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon,–
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down
Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.
When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky
With infinite affection
And infinite care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.
You can find this poem in Hope is the Thing With Feathers.
Evening Poetry, June 18
still there is mercy, there is grace
by Lucille Clifton
how otherwise
could i have come to this
marble spinning in space
propelled by the great
thumb of the universe?
how otherwise
could the two roads
of this tongue
converge into a single
certitude?
how otherwise
could i, a sleek old
traveler,
curl one day safe and still
beside You
at Your feet, perhaps,
but, amen, Yours.
You can find this poem in the collection Book of Light.
Life of Kim 