another poem from bentlily

 

Another poem about cherry blossoms

I write a poem about you every year
because it’s impossible to overlook you

the way you flounce onto the scene
with so much unrestrained splendor
as though you have no idea
it was just winter.

You are so defiantly upbeat,
so sudden,
so pink.

You are the extrovert of trees.

We drive to school on a street
flanked by your pompoms
waiting for the one windy day
when you will shake loose
your confetti petals all over our car

ending your season,
the way you arrived,
in a burst 
of glory.

 by Samantha Reynolds

 

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

— Diane Ackerman

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jalaluddin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks (The Essential Rumi)

February

The cold grows colder, even as the days
grow longer, February's mercury vapor light
buffing but not defrosting the bone-white
ground, crusty and treacherous underfoot.
This is the time of year that's apt to put
a hammerlock on a healthy appetite,
old anxieties back into the night,
insomnia and nightmares into play;
when things in need of doing go undone
and things that can't be undone come to call,
muttering recriminations at the door,
and buried ambitions rise up through the floor
and pin your wriggling shoulders to the wall;
and hope's a reptile waiting for the sun.

 By Bill Christophersen

 "The ancient monks had a practice of memento mori – to remember your death, or 'keep death daily before your eyes' as St Benedict writes in his Rule. This was not a morbid exercise, but a practice of gratitude for the gift of life, the gift of awareness in this moment now."

--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

 

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it."

~ Thích Nhất Hạnh

 “Both the monk and artist are edge dwellers, ones who commit to living in fertile border spaces and who call the wider community to alternative ways of being beyond the status quo. This can be a challenging and sometimes lonely place; it can also be exhilarating and exciting to step into the unknown.  Living on the edges means recognizing those places and experiences that do not offer easy answers, those fierce edges of life where things are not as clear as we hope them to be.  There is also beauty in the border spaces, those places of ambiguity and mystery.”

--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD 

Emily Dickinson, "I dwell in possibility" (#657)

 

I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--

 To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you.
That's what I think a meaningful life is.
One lives not just for oneself, but for one's community.
— Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 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 II, 29”
.

 

 

 

For the Sleepwalkers 

Tonight  I want to say something wonderful for the sleepwalkers who have so much faith in their legs, so much faith in the invisible    arrow carved into the carpet, the worn path that leads to the stairs instead of the window, the gaping doorway instead of the seamless mirror.    I love the way that sleepwalkers are willing to step out of their bodies into the night, to raise their arms and welcome the darkness,    palming the blank spaces, touching everything. Always they return home safely, like blind men who know it is morning by feeling shadows. And always they wake up as themselves again. That's why I want to say something astonishing like:  Our hearts are leaving our bodies. Our hearts are thirsty black handkerchiefs flying through the trees at night, soaking up the darkest beams of moonlight, the music    of owls, the motion of wind-torn branches. And now our hearts are thick black fists flying back to the glove of our chests. We have to learn to trust our hearts like that. We have to learn the desperate faith of sleep- walkers who rise out of their calm beds and walk through the skin of another life. We have to drink the stupefying cup of darkness and wake up to ourselves, nourished and surprised.    ~ Edward Hirsch ~

under the bench

 

 What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
- Jane Goodall

 

 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 that shoots the arrows
and you are the target.

Fear not a 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.

—— Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Sonnets to Orpheus” as translated by Joanna Macy