[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]Poems can be a doorway into another world. Each one, a simple arrangement of otherwise ordinary words, that together evoke presence, wonder, possibility. So here is an invitation to pause, let the words wash over you and glimpse the world they offer you…
It’s a growing collection, and we’d love to hear which ones resonate with you and why, and find out about your favourites. Here is an index of our Words of Wonder.[/vc_column_text]
If death is inevitable, if it is a sure thing that this face, these hands, this body that holds a lifetime of this living, will, someday, no longer be here, if you don’t get to take a single thing with you — then — why spend a moment more refusing, worrying about who might disapprove,…
I asked my mother where she kept her love and she answered: My love is a golden bird in a crystal cage and that cage is perched on the head of a fat boa coiled at the top of a tree and that tree is surrounded by scorpions and tigers and bears. So I went…
What we want: Moments Of lucidity Or better yet: of crystal clarity Rare are those moments And thoroughly hidden Searching hardly Pays off, but Finding does The art is to live So that it comes to pass That clarity, now and then by Martin Bril translated from Dutch by Kristine This poem, by the Dutch writer and…
Me: Hey God. God: Hey John. Me: I’m about to break. God: Why do you think that is? Me: Because life just keeps getting harder. God: Then you need to become softer. Me: Huh? God: Here is the thing: glass is hard but it can shatter easily when dropped rock is hard but it can…
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of. It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and…
You don’t have to act crazy anymore— We all know you were good at that, Now retire, my dear, From all that hard work you do Of bringing pain to your sweet eyes and heart. Look in a clear mountain mirror See the beautiful ancient warrior And the divine elements You always carry inside That…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. by Raymond Carver This was the last poem in Raymond Carver’s last book, written while he was dying of cancer. It is also…
She let go. She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go. She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the…
Oh do you have time to linger for just a little while out of your busy and very important day for the goldfinches that have gathered in a field of thistles for a musical battle, to see who can sing the highest note, or the lowest, or the most expressive of mirth, or the most…
Give up the fight For some other moment Some other life Than here, and now Give up the longing for some other world The wishing for other choices to make other songs to sing other bodies, other ages, other countries, other stakes Purge the past; forgive the future – for each come too soon. Surrender…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]There is such beauty In the way that the grass Gracefully accepts the snow And the snow gracefully accepts The soft landing place of The grass They are entirely at ease With each other’s presence Outside the world Of weather warnings and Closed bridges There is a grace right here Right now each flake Whirling…
My friend and I snickered the first time we heard the meditation teacher, a grown man, call himself honey, with a hand placed over his heart to illustrate how we too might become more gentle with ourselves and our runaway minds. It’s been years since we sat with legs twisted on cushions, holding back our…
Everything is beautiful and I am so sad. This is how the heart makes a duet of wonder and grief. The light spraying through the lace of the fern is as delicate as the fibers of memory forming their web around the knot in my throat. The breeze makes the birds move from branch to…
And if it’s true we are alone, we are alone together, the way blades of grass are alone, but exist as a field. Sometimes I feel it, the green fuse that ignites us, the wild thrum that unites us, an inner hum that reminds us of our shared humanity. Just as thirty-five trillion red blood…
Now, In this time of times perhaps we have such need again, for a poultice placed gently and with kindness upon the rounded body of the earth where too long our self-sickness has burrowed deep within and brought the breaking and the burning of fever dream, of pain and sorrow become now a crown of…
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep. by Rumi, translated/interpreted…
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]My friends, let’s grow up. Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here. Or if we truly haven’t noticed, let’s wake up and notice. Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost. It’s simple — how could we have missed it for so long? Let’s grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings,…
Beneath the masks, beneath the names, beneath ideals, beneath the shoulds is a thrumming, ecstatic atomic swirl, unseen and omnipresent, inescapable and holy—a divine blurring of being, a realm of charge and energy— most of it empty space. Sometimes, I remember this. Perhaps walking in the woods or standing in the midst of a city’s…
PART ONE, SONNET IV You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing that is more than your own. Let it brush your cheeks as it divides and rejoins behind you. Blessed ones, whole ones, you where the heart begins: You are the bow that shoots the arrows and you are the target. Fear not the…
From breath to breath from dusk to dusk let there be rainfall when the soil is parched as rock let there be sunshine when the barley bends to be cut let there be rainbows when the days are short of light let there be wind when our boats are turned for home. by Jane Clarke…
What we see is not the most important. Could dust rise without the invisible hand of the wind? Could a fan turn without any current? Could lungs breathe without breath? Tell me What is the shape of Love? How much does Joy weigh when hold in the palm of your hand? Can you catch the…
That’s it. Walk, don’t run. Slow down, breathe deeply, and open your eyes because there’s a whole world right here within this one. The bush doesn’t suddenly catch on fire, it’s been burning the whole time. Moses is simply moving slowly enough to see it. And when he does, he takes off his sandals. Not…
How admirable – a man who sees lightening and not satori by Matsuo Bashō In this very short poem, we are given a piece of pith wisdom for our practice. As I understand it, it is saying – watch out for when you lose the freshness because you’ve married yourself to limiting concepts! (Satori…
This morning as my eyes blink open it occurs to me as if for the first time what you, miracle body, have been up to All night long, while I let go you pumped blood through veins to fingertips and toes grew cells and eyelashes and nails inhaled and exhaled countless times all this while…
I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing… Silence… Waves… —Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life? by Juan Ramon Jimenez Here’s a poem which, for me, exemplifies what I see…
I was alone on a sunny shore by the forest’s pale blue lake, in the sky floated a single cloud and on the water a single isle. The ripe sweetness of summer dripped in beads from every tree and straight into my opened heart a tiny drop ran down. by Edith Södergran, translated from Swedish…
Listen, O brothers and sisters, If you recognise me, Queen of the Lake of Awareness, who encompasses both emptiness and form, know that I live in the minds of all beings who live. Know that I live in the body of mind and the field of the senses, that matter is only my bones and…
Whether or not you know that you are beautiful, the flowers gaze at you whenever you walk by. When your heart feels like stone and you’ve lost sight of the gifts being given, you are still held by the earth beneath you and kissed by the breath of the trees. When you’ve convinced yourself that…
Go inside a stone That would be my way. Let somebody else become a dove Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth. I am happy to be a stone. From the outside the stone is a riddle: No one knows how to answer it. Yet within, it must be cool and quiet Even though a cow…
I’ve lost: Three hours of work on the last chapter Friends I thought I had for life The golden cross pendant my godmother gave me Faith in God Frequently, my equanimity I almost lost: The way out of the woods My passport and smartphone at the Dutch tulip show My virginity before I was ready…