This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. This helps keep my blog ad-free.
Moon Clock by Donald Hall
Like an oarless boat through midnight's watery
ghosthouse, through lumens and shallows
of shadow, under smoky light that the full moon
reflects from snowfields to ceilings. I drift
on January's tide from room to room, pausing
by the wooden clock with its pendulum that keeps
the beat like a heart certainly beating, to wait
for the pause allowing passage
to repose's shore--where all waves halt
upreared and stony as the moon's Mycenaean lions.
You can find this poem in The Selected Poems of Donald Hall.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. This helps keep my blog ad-free.
Advent Calendarby Rowan Williams
He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
You can find this poem in Haphazard by Starlight.
Why Are Your Poems So Dark?by Linda Pastan
Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
You can find this poem on the Poetry Foundation website.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. This helps keep my blog ad-free.
Slow Downby Michelle Weigers
This morning I'm so tired
from pushing myself hard,
that as I drive down this country road
I can't bring myself to go
anywhere close to the speed limit.
I feel like a silver haired lady
peeking over my steering wheel
as I creep along, letting
the cars whiz by me.
I always assume the elderly
go slowly because they're cautious,
not wanting to hit anyone
or miss the ambulance
racing down the road with siren blaring.
But maybe they've figured out
a secret that I'm still trying to learn.
What if driving slowly
is the only way
to live my best life,
to keep from running so fast
that I go right past myself?
Running by the small child inside
who seeks to fill herself with wonder,
passing up the chance for rest,
for play, to slow myself
long enough to notice
how pleasant the rain sounds
dripping onto the roof
of the house next door,
tiny wet whispers tapping
those few remaining leaves
clinging to the maple
in my backyard,
an almost silent thrumming
slowing down my weary soul.
The steady chime
of church bells ringing
in the distance, in this moment,
reminding me, I've already
been given all that I need.
You can find this poem in The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. This helps keep my blog ad-free.
The Only Way I Know To Love the Worldby Julia Fehrenbacher
It's not just a cup of coffee
but the warm hum of hello, an invitation
to wake, to sip, to say thank you
for another chance to dance
with another new day.
It's not just a ceramic mug, but the one she
shaped with her own 16-year-old
hands for me. For me.
It's not just one heart held open
to another, or a kiss blown in the mirror,
not just the soft circle of smile,
but a nod of--I see you. You are not alone.
Not just life. But your life. Your very temporary life.
It's isn't just the earth you stand on
but the giver of every single thing, a reason
to get down on humbled, human knees
and say thank you thank you thank you.
It is not just another moment but a door flung open,
a flooded-with-light entrance to every real thing
not just a poem but a prayer whispered
from one listening ear
to another. The only way I know
to love the world.
You can find this poem in The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. This helps keep my blog ad-free.
Poem of Thankfulness
by Nathan Spoon
Today I am thankful for morning frost
touched by sunlight and sparkling
on lawns and fields I am thankful too
for you and the warmth provided to my feet
inside ordinary socks and shoes and the way
the music of your voice enters my ears
and warms my heart leaving this planet of ours
spinning (if only slightly) more easily;
and I will consider how the world is good
difficult and good and how a lifetime
is both too short and too long
and how the injured heart cannot heal but
as researchers in Sweden have discovered
the muscle of our disadvantaged organ also can
and does slowly replenish itself Today
when the bigness of the sky asks whoever
is standing beneath it are you ready
the gray trees drowsing and temporarily losing
the last of their burnt sienna leaves will say yes
and you will say yes and I will say yes too
You can find this poem in The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. This helps keep my blog ad-free.
November Praiseby Joshua Michael Stewart
The smell of ferns and understory
after rain. The tick, tick of stove,
flame under kettle. Bing Crosby,
and not just the Christmas records.
Cooking meat slowly off the bone,
and every kind of soup and stew.
To come this close to nostalgia,
but go no further, leaving behind
the boy who wore loneliness
like boots too big for his feet.
That time of evening,
when everything turns blue
in moonlight, when darkness
has yet to consume all for itself.
You can find this poem in The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. This helps keep my blog ad-free.
What the Roses Said to Meby Lahab Assef Al-Jundi
Don't forget me!
Always remember
my beauty is for your eyes.
My fragrance is for your spirit.
My unfolding
is my invitation to you
to yield to your own.
When your skies seem darkest,
when your heart is gripped by pain,
when uncertainty and fear
creep into your days,
come back to me.
Come into me.
Camp between my scented sheets.
Let me show you
a passageway back
to love.
You can find this poem in The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal.
The Most Important Thingby Julia Fehrenbacher
I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.
A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.
I am throwing arms open
to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,
fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing
every seed and weed, every drop
of rain, has made the soil richer.
I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather
around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl
if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through
any perceived problem, any prescribed perfectionism,
any lying limitation, every heavy thing.
I am making a home inside myself
where grace blooms in grand and glorious
abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows
all the truest things.
I whisper hallelujah to the friendly
sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.
You can read this poem on Grateful.org.
Twelve Moonsby David Steindle-Rast
When the wolf moon grows fat
and the North wind roars on the shore,
an angel shall feed your fire
and bolt your door.
When the clean spring moon rises,
an angel, unheard and unseen,
shall clean your seven springs
and keep them clean.
When the sap moon draws sap
upwards from bulb and root,
an angel gardener shall guard
each new green shoot.
When the grass moon makes grasses
nod to each other in bloom,
an angel in white shall greet you
at Christ’s bright tomb.
When the planting moon mirrors
her face in the cold-frame glass,
an angel shall breathe at your seedlings
till all frosts pass.
When the rose moon blooms
in the sky like a silver-wrought rose,
an angel shall show you a rose garden
no one else knows.
When a frolicsome angel
rolls the hay moon over the hill,
you shall dance with the deer in the dark
while time stands still.
When the green corn moon glides
through the ripening corn, row by row,
an angel shall make swelling spikes
sweet as they grow.
When the harvest moon lantern
hangs golden and plump in the sky,
you shall hear an angels scythe zing.
You won’t ask why.
When the hunter’s moon races
black clouds like a galloping prince,
an angel shall draw his bow,
yet, you won’t wince.
When the frosty moon blinds
every pond with a thin film of white,
peeling scales from your eyes,
an angel shall heal your sight.
When the long night moon wanes
and the darkness keeps deepening fast,
an angel shall forge from your fears
faith that will last.
You can find this poem at Grateful.org.
Life of Kim 