Imagine

 

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Living for today 

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

--John Lennon

[Sunflowers for the people of Ukraine as we imagine peace].

Send Love, It Matters

 

Somewhere someone needs help.
Send love.
It matters.

If you can't get there yourself,

Then take a deep breath.

Breathe in the weight of their troubles.

Breath out and send all those burdens

Into the Light

Where sorrows can be held

With the most tender and infinite grace.

Breathe in what you can do.

Breath out what you can't change.

Spool out a thread of connection,

Send courage and calm.

For the nights can be long

And filled with shadows,

And sometimes terrible

Unexpected waters will rise.

Somewhere someone needs help.

Send love.

It matters.

--Carrie Newcomer

Bliss

 

In the middle of the night,
My bedroom washed in moonlight
And outside
The faint hush-hushing
Of an ebbing tide,
I see Venus
Close to
The waning moon.
I hear the bubbling hoot
Of a playful owl.
Pierrot's purrs
Ripple under my hand,
And all this is bathed
In the scent of roses
By my bed
Where there are always
Books and flowers.

In the middle of the night,
The bliss of being alive!

--May Sarton

[Photo of the bliss of books and flowers.]

This World

 

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
    pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
    were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
    out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
    beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we're not too
    hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
    even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
    and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
    locked up in gold.

--Mary Oliver 

[Nā Pali Coast in Kauai]

Choice

 

There isn’t a right answer.
There just isn’t. The game show
where the bells ring and the points
go up and the confetti falls
because you got the answer
is a lie. The preacher who would assure you
of how to attain salvation
is making it all up. The doctor
who knows just how to fix
what ails you will be sure
of something else tomorrow.
Every choice will
wound someone, heal someone,
build a wall and open a conversation.
Things will always happen
that you can’t foresee.
But you have to choose.
It’s all we have—that little rudder
that we employ in the midst
of all the eddies and rapids,
the current that pulls us
inexorably toward the sea.
The fact that you are swept along
by the river is no excuse.
Watch where you are going.
Lean in toward what you love.
When in doubt, tell the truth.

–Lynn Ungar

[Photo from Grey Glacier in Patagonia]