Serenity Prayer

 

Send me a slow news day,

a quiet, subdued day,

in which nothing much happens of note,

just the passing of time,

the consumption of wine,

and a re-run of Murder, She Wrote.

Grant me a no news day,

a spare-me-your-views day,

in which nothing much happens at all—

a few hours together,

some regional weather,

a day we can barely recall.

--Brian Bilston

[Photo of White Rocks in Wallingford, VT].

I Have Decided

 

I have decided to find myself a home 
in the mountains, somewhere high up 
where one learns to live peacefully in
 the cold and the silence. It’s said that
 in such a place certain revelations may
 be discovered. That what the spirit
 reaches for may be eventually felt, if not
 exactly understood. Slowly, no doubt. I’m
 not talking about a vacation.

Of course at the same time I mean to 
stay exactly where I am.

Are you following me?

--Mary Oliver

[The road home].

Half

 Do not live half a life

and do not die a half death

If you choose silence, then be silent

When you speak, do so until you are finished

If you accept, then express it bluntly

Do not mask it

If you refuse then be clear about it

for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance

Do not accept half a solution

Do not believe half truths

Do not dream half a dream

Do not fantasize about half hopes

Half the way will get you no where

You are a whole that exists to live a life

not half a life.

 ~Khalil Gibran 

[Photo taken in our "word garden."]

Sometimes

 

Sometimes, when a bird calls, or a wind moves through the brush, or a dog barks in a distant farmyard, I must listen a long time, and hush. My soul flies back to where, before a thousand forgotten years begin, the bird and the waving wind were like me, and were my kin. My soul becomes a tree, an animal, a cloud woven across the sky. Changed and unfamiliar it turns back and questions me. How shall I reply?

--Herman Hesse

All the True Vows

 

All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.

There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.

Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don’t turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.

Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen

nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others.

By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.

Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,

it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.

Remember,
in this place
no one can hear you

and out of the silence
you can make a promise
it will kill you to break,

that way you’ll find
what is real and what is not.

I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.

Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years

in my own voice,

before it was too late
to turn my face again.

--David Whyte

Hope; An Owner's Manual

Look, you might as well know, this thing

is going to take endless repair: rubber bands,

crazy glue, tapioca, the square of the hypotenuse.

Nineteenth century novels. Heartstrings, sunrise:

all of these are useful. Also, feathers.

To keep it humming, sometimes you have to stand

on an incline, where everything looks possible;

on the line you drew yourself. Or in

the grocery line, making faces at a toddler

secretly, over his mother's shoulder.

You might have to pop the clutch and run

past all the evidence. Past everyone who is

laughing or praying for you. Definitely you don't

want to go directly to jail, but still, here you go,

passing time, passing strange. Don't pass this up.

In the worst of times, you will have to pass it off.

Park it and fly by the seat of your pants. With nothing

in the bank, you'll still want to take the express.

Tiptoe past the dogs of the apocalypse that are sleeping

in the shade of your future. Pay at the window.

Pass your hope like a bad check.

You might still have just enough time. To make a deposit.

--Barbara Kingsolver

[Photo of our grandsons who inspire hope for the future].

all the women you were before

 

i hope

when you come home to yourself

there are flowers lining the front porch

that were left from all the women

you were before

--MAIA

[Collage of flowers on porches].

The Work of Care

 

I’m not sure I can help

but my heart wants to try.

Oh, I can shop for you or

bring you dinner.

I can even help you up

should you fall.

But when the hunger is

inside, when the break is

where no one can see,

then all we can do is be

a greenhouse for each other.

--Mark Nepo

Not

You are not your age,
Nor the size of clothes you wear,
You are not a weight,
Or the color of your hair.
You are not your name,
Or the dimples in your cheeks,
You are all the books you read,
And all the words you speak.
You are your croaky morning voice,
And the smiles you try to hide,
You’re the sweetness in your laughter,
And every tear you’ve cried,
You’re the songs you sing so loudly,
When you know you’re all alone.
You’re the places that you’ve been to,
And the one that you call home,
You’re the things that you believe in,
And the people that you love,
You’re the photos in your bedroom,
And the future you dream of,
You’re made of so much beauty,
But it seems that you forgot,
When you decided that you were defined,
By all the things you’re not.

by Erin Hanson

[Photo of home this evening.]