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Let Evening Come, by Jane Kenyon

1/9/2022

 
Picture
BY JANE KENYON
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   
as a woman takes up her needles   
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   
Let the wind die down. Let the shed   
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   
in the oats, to air in the lung   
let evening come.
​

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   ​

And what is so rare as a day in June

6/10/2021

 
Picture


James Russell Lowell - 1819-1891​



And what is so rare as a day in June?      
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,      
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,      
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,      
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen     
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,      
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean      
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,      
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun      
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,--
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
​
Now is the high-tide of the year,      
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,      
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop over-fills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,      
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack;     
 We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,--
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,      
​Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Hearts on Fire, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

3/26/2021

 
Picture
“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability –
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”
Patient Trust
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
excerpted from Hearts on Fire


​

Spring, by Mary Oliver

2/26/2021

 
Picture

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
​
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
​Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;
​
all day I think of her -—
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

A Prayer for the World

2/17/2021

 
Picture
A Prayer for the Word Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
Let the sun come down and wash away the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds held and nurtured over generations. Let the rain wash away the memory of the hurt, the neglect.
Then let the sun come out and fill the sky with rainbows.
Let the warmth of the sun heal us wherever we are broken.
Let it burn away the fog so that so that we can see each other clearly.
So that we can see beyond labels, beyond accents, gender or skin color.
Let the warmth and brightness of the sun melt our selfishness,
So that we can share the joys and feel the sorrows of our neighbors. And let the light of the sun be so strong that we will see all people as our neighbors. Let the earth nourished by rain, bring forth flowers to surround us with beauty. And let the mountains teach our hearts to reach upward to heaven.

Amen

Stillness, by Thomas Keating

10/28/2020

 
Picture
Our true nature is stillness,
The Source from which we come.
. . . .
The deep listening of pure contemplation
Is the path to stillness.

All words disappear into It,
And all creation awakens to the delight of
Just Being.

                                                    —Thomas Keating, “Stillness”

Priceless Gifts, by Anna Swir

2/19/2020

 
Picture
Priceless Gifts
By Anna Swir
(1909 - 1984)
English version by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com

An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.

I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.

In this passing moment, by Hogen Bays

8/30/2019

 
In this passing moment
By Hogen Bays
(Contemporary) posted in www.poetry-chaikhana.com


"In the presence of Sangha, in the light of Dharma,
in oneness with Buddha -- may my path
to complete enlightenment benefit everyone!"


In this passing moment karma ripens
and all things come to be.
I vow to choose what is:
If there is cost, I choose to pay.
If there is need, I choose to give.
If there is pain, I choose to feel.
If there is sorrow, I choose to grieve.
When burning -- I choose heat.
When calm -- I choose peace.
When starving -- I choose hunger.
When happy -- I choose joy.
Whom I encounter, I choose to meet.
What I shoulder, I choose to bear.
When it is my death, I choose to die.
Where this takes me, I choose to go.
Being with what is -- I respond to what is.

This life is as real as a dream;
the one who knows it cannot be found;
and, truth is not a thing -- Therefore I vow
to choose THIS dharma entrance gate!
May all Buddhas and Wise Ones
help me live this vow.

Ethiopian Prayer

7/7/2019

 
Picture
​May you be for us a moon of joy and happiness.
Let the young become strong
and the grown man maintain his strength,
the pregnant woman be delivered
and the woman who has given birth suckle her child.
Let the stranger come to the end of his journey
and those who remain at home dwell safely in their houses.
Let the flocks that go to feed in the pastures return happily.
May you be a moon of harvest and of calves.
May you be a moon of restoration and of good health.
 
Ethiopian Prayer

Tourist of Pilgrim? by Macrina Wiederkehr

10/4/2018

 
Picture

 
I stand on the edge of myself and wonder where is home?
Oh, where is the place where beauty will last?
When will I be safe?  And where?
 
My tourist heart is wearing me out.
I am so tired of seeking for treasures that tarnish.
How much longer, Lord?
Oh, which way is home?
M luggage is heavy.  It is weighing me down.
I am hungry for the holy ground of home.
 
Then suddenly, overpowering me with the truth,
A voice within me gentles me, and says:
 
There is a power in you, a truth in you
That has not yet been tapped.
You are blinded with a blindness that is deep
For you’ve not loved the pilgrim in you yet.
 
There is a road that runs straight through your heart.
Walk on it.
 
To be a pilgrim means to be on the move, slowly,
To notice your luggage becoming lighter
To be seeking for treasures that do not rust
To be comfortable with your heart’s questions
To be moving toward the holy ground of home
With empty hands and bare feet.
 
And yet, you cannot reach that home
Until you’ve loved the pilgrim in you.
One must be comfortable with pilgrimhood
Before one’s feet can touch the homeland.
 
Do you want to go home?
There’s a road that runs straight through your heart.
Walk on it.
                                                                        Macrina Wiederkehr

<<Previous

    Contents

    Love after Love, by Derek Walcott
    Elizabeth Barrett Browning
    Credentials, by Daniel Berrigan
    Morning Poem, by Mary Oliver
    A Secret Life, by Stephen
        Dunn
    Tread in Solitude, by V.
        Schoffel

    Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann
    Beannacht
    , by John
        O'Donohue

    The house was quiet and the world was calm, by Wallace
        Stevens
    A Garden Beyond Paradise, by
        Rumi
    We remember them, from a
        Jewish Book of Prayer

    The Summer Day, by Mary
        Oliver

    An African Elegy, by Ben Okri
    Variation on a Theme by Rilke,
        by Denise Levertov
    Love of the World, Charlotte
        Tall Mountain

    The Poet's Obligation, Pablo
        Neruda
    All True Vows, David Whyte
    Sea Fever, John Masefield
    The Shortest Day, Jan Sutch
        Pickard

    Song for the Open Road,  Walt
        Whitman
    Keep Walking, Rumi
    Fog in the Valley, Paul Zimmer
    Bandito, Eleanor Lerman
    The Peace of Wild Things,
       Wendell Berry
    But the silence in the mind
, 
        R.S. Thomas
    I Wandered Lonely as a
      Cloud, William Wordsworth
    A Cloth of Fine Gold,
        Dorothy Walters
    Weather, Fleur Adcock
    The Blind Old Man, Robert
           Bly
    The Three Goals, David
           Budbill
    All Roads Lead to Me, 
           Anonymous
    With that Moon Language,
         Hafiz
    The River and Its Waves are
         One Surf, Kabir
    What to Remember When
          Waking, David Whyte
    Love after Love, Derek
       Wolcott
    Last Night As I Was  
        Sleeping, Antonio
        Machado (version by
         Robert Bly
    where we are, Gerald
        Locklin
    Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
    Why I Wake Early, Mary
        Oliver
    I heard a bird sing, Oliver    
         Hereford
    I have a house where I go, 
         A.A. Milne
    Going to Walden, Mary
         Oliver

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