Considered
*
“You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing
that is more than your own.
Let it brush your cheeks
as it divides and rejoins behind you.
Blessed ones, whole ones,
you where the heart begins:
You are the bow the shoots the arrows
and you are the target.
Fear not the pain. Let its weight fall back
into the earth;
for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.
The trees you planted in childhood have grown
too heavy. You cannot bring them along.
Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.”
from The Sonnets to Orpheus I, 4
Rainer Maria Rilke
*
#considered
#admirer
#viewer
#witness
#poetry
#art
#painting
#lover
#thinker
#beholder
#seer
#visionary
#extention
#expansion
#collaboration
#continuation
#conduit
#maker
#thankyou
#goodnight
Little songs
*
“The burden of absence grows, and I pay
daily the grief I owe to love
for women and men, days and trees
I will not know again. Pray
for the world’s light thus borne away.
Pray for the little songs that wake and move.”
Wendell Berry
from “This Day”
1985
*
#little
#songs
#wake
#move
#burden
#absence
#grows
#pay
#daily
#grief
#owed
#women
#men
#days
#trees
#notknown
#again
#light
#borne
#away
#thankyou
#goodnight
Until Bidden
*
“The breath circulating in my nostrils was the breath of dragons. Those conceived by children. And my heart was a known thing. I held the shape of things that did not come unless I bid them. Characters and stories reluctant to be born until I shook the cage of imagination, shocked them free to wreak havoc, gather wishes and trample time.”
from Bread of Angels
Patti Smith
*
#bidden
#breath
#dragons
#conceived
#children
#heart
#known
#held
#shapes
#donotcome
#untilbidden
#reluctant
#born
#shook
#cage
#ofimagination
#shockedfree
#wreakhavoc
#gatherwishes
#trampletime
#thankyou
#goodnight
No one at the wheel
*
Maybe it ruins the story to say at the start that no one was hurt
the day Scotty Forester swung open the door of the family car,
climbed up, put one hand on the wheel and, then, while pushing
and pulling on buttons and knobs, he found and released
the brake, and it started, the silver-blue Mercury, to roll
down Robin Street, best street in the neighborhood for sledding,
for coasting on a bike with arms waving above your head,
Scotty gaining speed on the long sweep of that block, heading
toward the intersection, then into it, then speeding
through, the car beginning to slow as the street leveled out,
although, toward the end, Scotty going fast enough
to jump the curb before stopping, three feet from a gas pump.
Maybe knowing the ending ruins this story, but sometimes
we need a break from dread. We need to know that the car
did not crash, the child did not die. We need to briefly forget
that we live in a world where a car is gaining speed, and
no one seems to be at the wheel. We need to be more
like the dog Scotty drives past, who barks, and runs in circles
as he barks some more, driven by some circuitry we have lost
for loving this dangerous life, living it.
Mercury
by Suzanne Cleary
*
#noone
#atthewheel
#mercury
#blue
#pushing
#buttons
#released
#break
#roll
#down
#speeding
#through
#lost
#circuitry
#loving
#this
#dangerous
#life
#and
#living
#it
#thankyou
#goodnight
Remember
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
from “she had some horses”
Poems by Joy Harjo
Poet Laureate of the United States
*
#remember
#sky
#born
#stars
#stories
#moon
#know
#who
#she
#is
#takecare
#of
#yourself
#and
#someone
#else
#too
#thankyou
#goodnight
refuge
*
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
Rainer Maria Rilke,
Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, Sonnet XXIX
(Translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows)
*
#refuge
#quietfriend
#comesofar
#feel
#howyourbreathing
#makesmorespace
#aroundyou
#iftheworld
#aroundyou
#hasceasedtohearyou
#say
#tothesilentearth
#iflow
#totherushingwater
#speak
#iam
#thankyou
#goodnight
making space
*
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
Rainer Maria Rilke,
Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, Sonnet XXIX
(Translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows)
#mystery
#crossroads
#quiet
#friend
#come
#sofar
#feel
#how
#your
#breathing
#makes
#more
#space
#around
#you
#breathe
#thankyou
#goodnight
reality
*
“We must accept our reality in all its immensity. Everything, even the unheard of, must be possible within it. This is, in the end, the only courage required of us: the courage to meet what is strangest and most awesome.”
from “Letters To A Young Poet”
by Rainer Maria Rilke
*
#reality
#acceptance
#immensity
#everything
#unheard
#possible
#within
#theend
#courage
#required
#meet
#strangest
#most
#awesome
#thankyou
#goodnight
When it happens
*
Scarecrow
The rice field birds are too clever for scarecrows,
They know what they love, milk in the grain.
When it happens, there will be no time to look for anyone.
Husband, children, nine brothers and sisters.
You will drop your sugarcane-stick-beating of plastic bucket,
Stop shouting at birds and run.
They will load you in trucks and herd you for a hundred miles.
Old men will teach you trade with soldiers at checkpoints.
You will give them your spoon, blanket and beans,
They’ll let you keep your life…
And you will keep your cool.
Standing with eyes shut tight like you’ve got soap in them.
Arms stretched wide like you’re catching rain.
by Fady Joudah
*
#whenithappens
#scarecrow
#standing
#eyesshuttight
#armsstretchedwide
#catchingrain
#staysafe
#thankyou
#goodnight
Fallow
*
To the Rain
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Mother rain, manifold, measureless,
falling on fallow, on field and forest,
on house-roof, low hovel, high tower,
downwelling waters all-washing, wider
than cities, softer than sisterhood, vaster
than countrysides, calming, recalling:
return to us, teaching our troubled
souls in your ceaseless descent
to fall, to be fellow, to feel to the root,
to sink in, to heal, to sweeten the sea.
*
#fallow
#rain
#mother
#manifold
#measureless
#falling
#field
#forest
#washing
#softening
#calming
#recalling
#returning
#teaching
#descending
#sinking
#healing
#sweetening
#thankyou
#goodnight
more than your own
*
from What You Cannot Hold
Sonnets to Orpheus I, 4
Rainer Maria Rilke
You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing
that is more than your own.
Let it brush your cheeks
as it divides and rejoins behind you…
*
#more
#than
#your
#own
#what
#you
#cannot
#hold
#enter
#the
#breathing
#thankyou
#goodnight
Into the water
“Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
David Bowie
#always
#go
#alittle
#further
#water
#push
#farther
#gobeyond
#capability
#then
#right
#place
#righttime
#dosomething
#exciting
#thankyou
#goodnight
