Self Portrait It doesn’t interest me if there is one GodOr many gods.I want to know if you belong — or feel abandoned;If you know despairOr can see it in others.I want to knowIf you are prepared to live in the worldWith its harsh need to change you;If you can
In out-of-the-way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander, This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge. For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to
For the Senses May the touch of your skin Register the beauty Of the otherness That surrounds you. May your listening be attuned To the deeper silence Where sound is honed To bring distance home. May the fragrance Of a breathing meadow Refresh your heart And remind you you are
Sweet Darkness When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
Everything is Waiting for You (After Derek Mahon) Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
A Leaf From the Tree of Songs, Adam Christianson When harpers once in wooden hall A shining chord would strike Their songs like arrows pierced the soul Of great and low alike Aglow by hearth and candleflame From burning branch ot ember The mist of all their music sang As
A Daily Journey And we walked on the foggy low-lit trail Burned at the edges, Rising, stride by stride, slow then quick Then slow. With gratitude— Each step became More deliberate— More lifted— More alive— More amore— Leading to that rare place that rests In the body’s marrow, The mind’s
Gratitude In the life of aspiration and dedication The gratitude-deer always runs the fastest, Always achieves the most, Always becomes the perfection-satisfaction Of the highest And Most fulfilling and fulfilled Supreme in us. Gratitude is not a human achievement. Gratitude is a divine treasure Granted to us By the inner
Fluent I would love to live Like a river flows, Carried by the surprise Of its own unfolding. — John O’Donohue “Fluent” by John O’Donohue
Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. — Robert Frost Nothing Gold Can
Communal Acts of Beauty 