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.
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…