life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Poetry”

19 Apr 2014

cost of freedom

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In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If you break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders Fields
By Major John McCrae – 1915 – Boezinge

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Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me
Happy Easter!!!

Posted in awareness, courage, Death, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Freedom, giving, Glory, Gospel, grace, Life, Poetry, success, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
05 Apr 2014

the opening of eyes

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That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.

“The Opening of Eyes” by David Whyte, from Songs for Coming Home. © Many Rivers Press, 1984.

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Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Beliefs, beloved, Change, Choice, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, healing, inspiration, Life, Poetry, soul and spirit, words, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
02 Apr 2014

oh the places you’ll go (the challenge to write my way out of a paper bag)

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I googled it
what was the history?
the meaning?
my ability to write,
along with me,
had just been put into this container – a paper bag
that I couldn’t write my way out of???
It felt like a throw down challenge.
how difficult is this challenge?
and, by golly,
how did I get into the this giant paper bag?
armed only with pen,
quite obviously
a silly decision.
Why didn’t I think to bring scissors?
or
chocolate?
If I had chocolate
I wouldn’t really mind being in this paper bag
I should have seen this coming
been prepared…
just in case I can’t figure out
how to write myself out.
Of course,
I didn’t really intend to get stuck here
in a paper bag –
it just somehow happened.
I got caught in a cross-fire
of two people
with razor-sharp writing skills.
(are they better than mine –
or do we all just have our own voice?
hmmmm)
maybe I’ll just stay in this bag
and take a nap.
it’s pretty comfy here.
Oh nice, I have an orange in my pocket.
I can write myself out later
I’ve never found myself in a paper bag before –
think I’ll just enjoy the novelty of the adventure
before I go home for dinner.

AL 1/6/13

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Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, beloved, create, determination, find art at pinterest, Letting Go, perceptions, Poetry, words, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
27 Mar 2014

the power of naming and allowing to remain un-named

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Words
by Dana Gioia

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other—
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper—
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always—
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.

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21 Mar 2014

The mind that comes to rest is tended in ways that it cannot intend: is borne, preserved and comprehended by what it cannot comprehend. – Wendell Berry

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Let us then labour for an inward stillness,
An inward stillness and an inward healing,
That perfect silence where the lips and heart are still,
And we no longer entertain our own imperfect
Thought and vain opinions,
But God above speaks in us,
And we wait in singleness of heart,
That we may know His will,
And in the silence of our spirit
That we may do His will,
And do that only…
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Posted in Adventure, Alone, attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, nature, Poetry, Solitude, soul and spirit, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
25 Jan 2014

“Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.” – Pema Chodron

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The sky in my rearview
is a huge bowl of rainbow sherbet
the beautiful kind of flavor-ite.
I love eating
that certain shade of raspberry, orange n lime
swatches of lemon, indigo and periwinkle
float in and out
around.
Flaming.
Framing.
Dancing.
Living.
At one point a bold, red-gold-tangerine fills the top of the hilly crest
and head light ‘stars’ of Friday night traffic
blaze brilliant against the backdrop,
indigo stretches wide above,
high, cut-thru mountains frame the sides as I drive,
framing this unending sky-filling masterpiece
– I lose my breath in wonder.
At times I find it hard to keep moving forward
into the matt gray and dirty white
of drudgery ahead.
with so much loveliness going on
right behind me.
How can it be so different at the same time?
How can this reflection be so clear?
how can I keep heading away from it?
How can I not be a part of this splendor?
How can I not be enveloped,
devoured,
consumed by this color?
Eventually midnight blue seizes its moment of glory,
then night falls over all the world I can see on any side,
and I am left
aching with the beauty,
the majesty,
the extravagant display,
the glorious wonder,
of this wonderful world.
The ache gets deeper,
wider.
I go to wondering
if this longing for the kiss,
which should have been,
will ever be answered?
if my whole life
I will wait
for a moment which passed,
never to be realized under this piece of ever-changing sky –
always a whisper in my soul.
This magic of first love,
a thing with wings
hovering over my heart
for another 38 years –
echoing on into eternity.

AL 1/25/14

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gratitude, Life, Love, Miracles, mystery, Poetry, soul and spirit, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
11 Jan 2014

being human

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I spot one.
a coin laudro-mat
I feel blessed to be able to wash my clothes.
towels and unmentionables.
a small bag.
I walk into the familiar,
yet for a while now,
Blessedly Unfamiliar.
I remember the years of this in my life
my most missed luxury in all of life
was washing and drying clothes
at home.
So hard this part of life became.
So challenging and humbling.
$4.50 to wash
a quarter for 5 minutes to dry.
I struggle to adjust.
I hadn’t planned on this.
I don’t look the part today.
I have to ask questions to reacquaint myself with this system.
Here in the midst of
hard working and living men,
tired mothers and crying babies,
the immigrants and struggling,
These to whom I belong.
those who make their living
through making clean the dirty.

I stand and watch the circle go round
Hot tears stinging my eyes
I remember.
Those days.
Those tough as nails days.
Plunged from luxury to poverty
in a heartbeat break of life.
So soon we forget…
So quickly we remember…
I watch the water rise –
I didn’t put in enough soap.
There are no suds.
I pray that hot water I chose
for those 2 extra, hard earned quarters,
will do it’s work
and my clothes will smell good.
I will not prolong my stay –
or use more of my precious coins.

I pray each of our guardian-laundry angels
will bless each of us
doing laundry every day
in all types of conditions.
This would be pure luxury in parts of this world.
I pray for grace.
I pray to remember.
I pray to be grace.
I pray to be The Words of God to heal the broken.
I pray for grace.
I pray for the crying baby,
and the tired man,
whose current outfit could use a good washing itself.
I pray for the immigrant family,
quietly folding together,
speaking Spanish in hushed voices.
I pray for the fabulous girl at the dryers,
with the faux Burberry scarf flung jauntily over her shoulder,
I hope to carry myself with such flair and dignity.
We are all here –
Bearing the high cost,
and inconvenience,
of poverty in our society.

I pray as quiet tears run.
I stand in my washer’s corner hoping nobody sees my memories.
I blow my over-productive nose.
and give thanks for all things.
Especially that I have known these struggles.
That I know how this feels.
That I am part of this humanity.
Not separate
I am one with all God’s created people.
All seeking clean clothes,
washing machines
and hope.

The crying baby starts to laugh
I smile as well.
God is always good
I am always blessed –
If I am willing to see the blessings –
even if it takes years to see them.

AL 12/22/13

Posted in Adventure, attitude, awareness, Beginning, Beliefs, beloved, Blessing, Choice, Encouragement, Faith, perceptions, Poetry, Prayer, Trust, Vulnerability | Leave a comment
04 Jan 2014

do you see the prayers made of everything that some people call ordinary?

Mindful
by Mary Oliver

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

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Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, courage, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, Glory, Poetry, Prayer, thankfulness, words, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
21 Nov 2013

permission granted by David Allen Sullivan

You do not have to choose the bruised peach0315c81fd0c0611caf80ae4ba38bdb3a
or misshapen pepper others pass over.
You don’t have to bury
your grandmother’s keys underneath
her camellia bush as the will states.

You don’t need to write a poem about
your grandfather coughing up his lung
into that plastic tube—the machine’s wheezing
almost masking the kvetching sisters
in their Brooklyn kitchen.

You can let the crows amaze your son
without your translation of their cries.
You can lie so long under this
summer shower your imprint
will be left when you rise.

You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.ff27f07deb00adb5433bdd4ad7b760eb
Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude.
Revel in the flight of birds without
dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of
raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie.

Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune
yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.
Each beat of the world’s pulse demands
only that you feel it. No thoughts.
Just the single syllable: Yes …

See the homeless woman following
the tunings of a dead composer?
She closes her eyes and sways
with the subways. Follow her down,
inside, where the singing resides.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org

Posted in action, Adventure, attitude, awareness, find art at pinterest, Gratitude, Poetry, Purpose, Songs from the Valley, touch, Trust, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment
15 Nov 2013

in the middle

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The White
by
Patricia Hampl

These are the moments
before snow, whole weeks before.
The rehearsals of milky November,
cloud constructions
when a warm day
lowers a drift of light
through the leafless angles
of the trees lining the streets.
Green is gone,
gold is gone.
The blue sky is
the clairvoyance of snow.
There is night
and a moon
but these facts
force the hand of the season:
from that black sky
the real and cold white
will begin to emerge.

http://www.patriciahampl.com

Posted in awareness, beauty, Encouragement, find art at pinterest, fun, Gratitude, inspiration, Life, nature, Poetry, Seasons, thankfulness, www.pinterest.com | Leave a comment

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