Category: Poetry

“You Learn” by Jorge Luis Borges

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth…

And you learn and learn…

With every good-bye you learn.

–“You Learn” by Jorge Luis Borges

“Permission Granted” by David Allen Sullivan

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

You do not have to choose the bruised peach
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.
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.

“Permission Granted” by David Allen Sullivan, from Strong-Armed Angels. © Hummingbird Press, 2008.

“Behind the Thunder” by Mark Nepo

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

I keep looking for one more teacher,
only to find that fish learn from water
and birds learn from sky.

If you want to learn about the sea,
it helps to be at sea.
If you want to learn about compassion,
it helps to be in love.
If you want to learn about healing,
it helps to know of suffering.

The strong live in the storm
without worshipping the storm.

– Mark Nepo, Reduced to Joy

“Later in Life” by Jorie Graham

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

I step out and suddenly notice this.

Summer arrives, has arrived, is arriving.

Birds grow less than leaves although they cheep, dip, arc, a call across the tall fence from an invisible neighbor to his child is heard right down to the secret mood and the child also hears.

One hears in the silence that follows the great desire for approval and love which summer holds aloft, all damp leeched from it like a thing floating out on a frail but perfect twig end.

Light seeming to darken in it yet glow.

Please, it says, but not with the eager and need of spring.

Come what may, says summer, smack in the middle I will stand and breathe, the future is a super fluidity I do not taste, no, there is no numbering here, it is a gorgeous swelling, no emotion, as in this love is no emotions, no, also no memory. We have it all now and all there ever was is us now.

– from Jorie Graham’s, “Later In Life”

via Whiskey River

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* Graham’s full poem, “Later in Life” found on The New Yorker:

"Later in Life"
“Later in Life”

“How to Love Your Introvert” by Kevin Yang

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry, Spoken Word2 Comments

“There will be many times when you will be uncomfortable in my silence unsure of how I am feeling. Understand that just because I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve for everyone to see does not mean it beats any softer than yours. Do not confuse the stillness of lips with rhythm of apathy. Do not confuse the sound of words rounding off 80 beats per minute with the music of an actual conversation just because I cannot commit the act of small talk does not mean I don’t have huge things to say. Just because I find peace within myself does not mean that I could ever stop wanting to love so hard.”

from “How to Love Your Introvert” by Kevin Yang

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