And, one day I looked back for you But you weren’t there anymore A stranger did I see Looking back at me And, in that very moment I did promise That I would keep looking back for you As I know One day I will See you again
Poem written by Athey Thompson Poem taken from A Little Book Of Poetry
Art by Arthur Rackham
And sometimes a poem just hits you, knocks your socks off as we used to say. Just as I used to look for you, and somedays now still do.
“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 honourably. 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.”
Rumi
“Inside the Earth, there are energies of joy, peace, and love that are expressed for example through a flower that grows from the Earth, food that comes out of it and everything that makes it our home. I’ve spent years looking for ways that this energy could influence people. The beauty and aroma of roses can be used as a medicine and the sun’s rays as food. Life has an infinite number of forms, and the duty of scientists is to find them. All I do is look for them. I will not give up.The Universe is alive in all its manifestations. The stone is a sensitive being, such as plants, animals, and people. A star that shines asks to be seen, and if we were not self-absorbed, we would understand its language and its message. The breath, the eyes and the ears of a human being have to fulfill the breath, the eyes and the ears of the Universe.”~ Nikola Tesla
Thich-nhat-hanh-gems
Rumi—Posted by psyches-call-with-donna-may
How can we be today, in the midst of thoughts crashing around corners? Old women are sweeping the cobwebs off the sky, the corners in mist, drunk from poetry.
The roads…the roads that lead into the mystery, that hold the sun in its place, that whisper of morning frost melted into ink for the pen. Awake and breathe! The notes of the air become visible.
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”
Mary Oliver
Posted by Ravenous Butterflies, a very fine site as I’ve said and shared often. It has consistent appeal for me and touches on the things I love.
Something has occurred to me as I enjoyed this and chose it to post. When I was little, in grade school, I collected holy cards. I must have had hundreds. Lord knows where they ended up, I can’t imagine throwing them away, but like many things of childhood, disappeared they are.
So, as I captured this, I thought of those bygone treasures and their singular importance to me. I was struck by the holy-card look of the Mucha painting. How I would have loved to purchase it in the treasured form to be held in the Missal of the Mass. And then it struck me that perhaps I had not stopped collecting at all, but turned to other things such as this, to hold on these pages, or in another venue, but as well both in my heart.
I’ve always known we don’t really grow up, but now I know we don’t quit the things we hold to heart. We just change the form.
Again late, my friends. Apparently I am only able to acknowledge birthdays a day past. Nonetheless, here it is.
Gary Snyder…sometimes called the poet of the earth. Some of his poems transcend, may cause an altered state. A caution might precede the poetry: warning, may cause thinking, even loving.
Beat hero, steward of the earth, Zen Buddhist—in his mid-eighties, poet Gary Snyder looks back on an honorable life at the leading edge.
Gary Snyder. Photo by Festival of Faiths. In Lion’s Roar Buddhist Magazine
I want to share a GS poem with you. Here’s one.
My home was at Cold Mountain from the start,
Rambling among the hills, far from trouble.
Gone, and a million things leave no trace
Loosed, and it flows through the galaxies
A fountain of light, into the very mind—
Not a thing, and yet it appears before me;
Now I know the pearl of the Buddha-nature
Know its use: a boundless perfect sphere.
Writers Ink—Writing and Stuff 