Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
“Prayer,” by Galway Kinnell, from A New Selected Poems (Mariner Books).
Author: Christina's Words
“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford
“It is Not Enough” by David Whyte
It is not enough to know.
It is not enough to follow
the inward road conversing in secret.
It is not enough to see straight ahead,
to gaze at the unborn
thinking the silence belongs to you.
It is not enough to hear
even the tiniest edge of rain.
You must go to the place
where everything waits,
there, when you finally rest,
even one word will do,
one word or the palm of your hand
turning outward
in the gesture of gift.
And now we are truly afraid
to find the great silence
asking so little.
One word, one word only.
“It is Not Enough” from Where Many Rivers Meet by David Whyte. Copyright © 1990, 2004 by David Whyte.
“On Angels” by Czeslaw Milosz
All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe you,
messengers.
There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams.
Short is your stay here:
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at the close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.
They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.
The voice — no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightning.
I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:
day draws near
another one
do what you can.
– Czeslaw Milosz as printed in Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation (Harmony Press), edited by Roger Housden.
“No System for Grief” by Kimberly Grey
You were in the world and. More
slowly now I am
so fasted now so. Long
it’s been without
you, if you ever read this
you were what. I was dreaming of
this welt, to know
it before. It comes like love
I loved your
empty spaces,
saved them a little
like. The sea
it’s dying, believe me,
long ago today
I was. Fond of saying time is
just wandering away, love,
you heard me once say
I am the lost shiny thing
you were. Designed for
this decade, jumped hoops to get me
and picture it, got through
but not this I’m not through
and. I will not miss this big sadness or.
How I heard your body break into such.
Fragments toward what. Bewilder meant.
“No System for Grief” by Kimberly Grey, originally published in Linebreak
“Breakage” by Mary Oliver
I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.
Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.
from Why I Wake Early: New Poems by Mary Oliver, published by Beacon Press, 2005.
Words ... for the Time Being 