TWICE BLESSED

So that
I stopped
there
and looked
into the sun,

seeing not only
my reflected face
but the great sky
that framed
my lonely figure

and after a moment
I lifted my hands
and then my eyes
and I
allowed myself
to be

astonished
by the great
everywhere
calling to me
like an
invisible
and unspoken
invitation,
like something
in one moment
both calling to me
and radiating
from where I stood,

as if I could
encompass
everything
I had been given
and everything
taken from me

as if I could be
everything
I have learned
and everything
I could know,

as if I knew
in that moment
both the way
I had come
and, secretly,

the way
I was still
promised to go,

brought together,
like this,
with the
unyielding ground
and the symmetry
of the moving sky,
caught in still waters.

Someone
I have been,
and someone
I am just,
about to become,

something I am
and will be forever,
the sheer generosity
of being loved
through loving:
the miracle reflection
of a twice blessed life.

--David Whyte from 

Work in Progress

From Which It All Began

Tell me, what
would you do today
if you knew your life
to be a celebration
of this world?

Would you stop
to gather sunlight
dropping soundlessly
upon pines
beyond your window pane?

Would you court
dreams too wide
for the container
of consciousness?

Would you linger
in the terrible beauty
of uncertainty
as if the fullness of the world
depended upon your presence?

Would you cast your hopes
upon possibilities that abide
only in departure?

Would you become the motion
of your song,
losing itself in overtones
of delight
or despair
and returning, finally,
to the stillness
from which it all began?

--Bernadette Miller

Vulnerability

Vulnerability is not a weakness,
a passing indisposition,
or something we can arrange to do without,
vulnerability is not a choice,
vulnerability is the underlying,
ever present and abiding undercurrent
of our natural state.
To run from vulnerability is to run
from the essence of our nature,
the attempt to be invulnerable
is the vain attempt to become
something we are not and most especially,
to close off our understanding
of the grief of others.
More seriously, in refusing our vulnerability
we refuse the help needed
at every turn of our existence
and immobilize the essential, tidal and conversational foundations of our identity.

--David Whyte (from book Consolations)

The Almanac of Last Things

From the almanac of last things
I choose the spider lily
for the grace of its brief
blossom, though I myself
fear brevity,

but I choose The Song of Songs
because the flesh
of those pomegranates
has survived
all the frost of dogma.

I choose January with its chill
lessons of patience and despair--and
August, too sun-struck for lessons.
I choose a thimbleful of red wine
to make my heart race,

then another to help me
sleep. From the almanac
of last things I choose you,
as I have done before.
And I choose evening

because the light clinging
to the window
is at its most reflective
just as it is ready
to go out.

--Linda Pastan, from Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998 

LEARNING TO WALK

Walked out this morning
into a broad green garden
with the rising sun in my eyes
and the first hint of the day’s heat
touching my face,
feeling as broad as the garden
and young as the day
and soaking up the heat
in my black tee-shirt,
walked straight forward
out of the gate,
through the wood,
along the river,
toward the mountain
and thought of the future
I could make in the world
if I walked toward it
like this,
with my face toward the hills
and my eyes full of light
and the earth sure
and solid beneath me,
walking on
with a fierce anticipation,
and a faithful expectation,
with the sun and the rain
and the wind on my skin…

--David Whyte

Just Beyond Yourself

There is a road
always
beckoning.

When you see
the two sides
of it
closing together
at that far horizon
and deep in
the foundations
your own
heart
at exactly
the same
time,

that’s how
you know
it's where
you
have
to go.

That’s how
you know
it’s the road
you
have
to follow.

That’s how
you know
you have
to go.

That’s
how you know.

It’s just beyond
yourself,
it’s
where you
need to be.

--David Whyte

You Start Dying Slowly

You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.

You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem;
When you do not let others help you.

You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colours
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.

You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.

You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice…

 So start living....my dear.

Start living.

--Widely attributed Pablo Neruda  but actually by Martha Medeiros in "A Morte Devagar" 

Gratitude

This week, the news of the world is bleak, another war
grinding on, and all these friends down with cancer,
or worse, a little something long term that they won’t die of
for twenty or thirty miserable years—
And here I live in a house of weathered brick, where a man
with silver hair still thinks I’m beautiful. How many times
have I forgotten to give thanks? The late day sun shines
through the pink wisteria with its green and white leaves
as if it were stained glass, there’s an old cherry tree
that one lucky Sunday bloomed with a rainbow:
cardinals, orioles, goldfinches, blue jays, indigo buntings,
and my garden has tiny lettuces just coming up,
so perfect they could make you cry: Green Towers,
Red Sails, Oak Leaf. For this is May, and the whole world
sings, gleams, as if it were basted in butter, and the air’s
sweet enough to send a diabetic into shock—
And at least today, all the parts of my body are working,
the sky’s clear as a china bowl, leaves murmur their leafy chatter,
finches percolate along. I’m doodling around this page,
know sorrow’s somewhere beyond the horizon, but still, I’m riffing
on the warm air, the wingbeats of my lungs that can take this all in,
flush the heart’s red peony, then send it back without effort or thought.
And the trees breathe in what we exhale, clap their green hands
in gratitude, bend to the sky.

--by Barbara Crooker.

(Photo from today that illustrates why we are grateful to live in Vermont).