life: acoustic & amplified

on this day

Joy and sorrow are inseparable;

Together they come,

And when one sits alone with you

Remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

💞

~Gibran Khalil Gibran

 

 

It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

❤

It Was Like This: You Were happy by Jane Hirshfield

One day

after a very long time of grief,

I woke up

and remembered…

how water felt when I washed my hair,

fingers kneading the scalp

baptized and born.

How lemons smelled 

and my tongue recoiled,

chewing was no longer such work. 

and I could see red of a strawberry

and cut tiny pieces of banana and cantaloupe

for a tray in the garden. 

 ❤

One day

after a very long time of grief,

I woke up

and remembered…

the Light crushing all resistance

even the palms of my hands

healing 

and holy.

Even the mind of the heart

swirling in a consciousness that pulled back

a thousand veils,

all at once.

and I remembered.

❤

I woke up

I remembered

I rode on the revelation

for a very long time;

on the verbs

and the sway of the Yes.

The insistence of following

further

some radical desire

of collecting jars

to hold 

the

Light

❤

to set them near the sea

for others to follow

 ❤

Beauty,

Rev. Donna Knutson

❤                          ❤                              ❤                            ❤

I look around for a poem today
I search for words to flow in a pattern
I feel off,
disjointed.
Will they be pretty or painful?
raw or honeyed?
I’m not sure…
life is full
always both bitter and sweet,
so there is sure to be some of each
floating inside me today,
waiting for my pen to capture,
my hand will clench it to mark them into being,
the pure white paper
will be scarred to receive them.

What will I bring forth into the world today, regardless of my circumstance?
What will I call into time and space on this day as I walk through it giving and receiving?
What will I leave behind myself, like the trail of the snail, for others to experience?

On this day I will choose to sing
On this day I will choose hope
On this day I will choose sacrifice
On this day I will choose to proclaim the faithfulness of God
I will choose gratitude for this breath within me, within you
I will choose to share this amazing grace showered upon the good days and the bad days, the just and the unjust
Choices will make up my day, as they do every day
Today I will choose love

❤

Amy Lloyd

There is a brokenness

Out of which comes the unbroken,

A shatteredness out

Of which blooms the unshatterable,

There is a sorrow

Beyond all grief which leads to joy

And a fragility

Out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space

Too vast for words

Through which we pass with each loss,

Out of darkness

We are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound

Whose serrated edges cut the heart

As we break open

To the place inside which is unbreakable

And whole,

While learning to sing.

~ Rashani