Kahlil Gibran on Joy & Sorrow

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

What Issa Heard

Two hundred years ago Issa heard the morning birds
singing sutras to this suffering world.

I heard them too, this morning, which must mean,

since we will always have a suffering world,
we must also always have a song.

by David Budbill

Mr. Darcy

In the end she just wanted the house

               and a horse not much more what

       if  he didn’t own the house or worse

                       not even a horse how do we

separate the things from a man the man from

               the things is a man still the same

       without his reins here it rains every fifteen

                       minutes it would be foolish to

marry a man without an umbrella did

               Cinderella really love the prince or

       just the prints on the curtains in the

                       ballroom once I went window-

shopping but I didn’t want a window when

               do you know it’s time to get a new

       man one who can win more things at the

                       fair I already have four stuffed

pandas from the fair I won fair and square

               is it time to be less square to wear

       something more revealing in North and

                       South she does the dealing gives him

the money in the end but she falls in love

               with him when he has the money when

       he is still running away if the water is

                       running in the other room is it wrong

for me to not want to chase it because it owns

               nothing else when I wave to a man I

       love what happens when another man with

                       a lot more bags waves back

by Victoria Chang

“The Good News” by Thich Nhat Hanh

They don’t publish
the good news.
The good news is published
by us.
We have a special edition every moment,
and we need you to read it.
The good news is that you are alive,
and the linden tree is still there,
standing firm in the harsh Winter.
The good news is that you have wonderful eyes
to touch the blue sky.
The good news is that your child is there before you,
and your arms are available:
hugging is possible.
They only print what is wrong.
Look at each of our special editions.
We always offer the things that are not wrong.
We want you to benefit from them
and help protect them.
The dandelion is there by the sidewalk,
smiling its wondrous smile,
singing the song of eternity.
Listen! You have ears that can hear it.
Bow your head.
Listen to it.
Leave behind the world of sorrow
and preoccupation
and get free.
The latest good news
is that you can do it.
– Thich Nhat Hanh

Instructions on Not Giving Up

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

 

By Ada Limón From Ten Poems for Difficult Times

Thirteen Ways to Love the Rain (after Wallace Stevens)

I
Moss profusion dangling from branches
II
mist’s dew-faced gleam
III
bucketing, lashing, mizzling, a whole vocabulary
IV
sun’s glimmer on wet stones
V
the way a broken umbrella dances, urban tumbleweed
VI
walking home that night so soaked I no longer cared
VII
moodiness of rain, defying perpetual optimism
VII
splashing puddles in wellies, like we did as children
VIII
curling up to read by rain-splattered windows
IX
fat drops falling slowly, then gaining momentum
X
the ferocity of storms, wind blowing you sideways
XI
arcs of color crossing the sky
XII
birds huddled on quiet city streets,
XIII
how it keeps me inside with you.

Christine Valters Paintner