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Credentials, by Daniel Berrigan

5/4/2016

 
Picture
I would it were possible to state in so

few words my errand in the world: quite simply

forestalling all inquiry, the oak offers his leaves

largehandedly. And in winter his integral magnificent order

decrees, says solemnly who he is

in the great thrusting limbs that are all finally

one: a return, a permanent river and sea.


 
So the rose is its own credential, a certain

unattainable effortless form: wearing its heart

visibly, it gives us heart too: bud, fullness and fall.
Daniel Berrigan (1921-2016)
Offered in Poetry Chaikhana <ivan@poetry-chaikhana.com>
 


A Portrait,  Maurice Nicoll

2/27/2016

 
Picture
A Portrait,  Maurice Nicoll
 
In the dead of night,
In the dark of the Moon
I beheld Thy Might
And craved a boon.
Not in thunder nor in storm-wind
Did'st Thou answer
But in the stillness of pure meaning.
Then I knew if the boon were granted
I would die comfortably
The most terrible death of all
Which is spiritual death.
Like a single chord of vast music
Containing all inexpressible divine truth
It entered the limitations of my language.
It became words -- as once before:
'My grace is sufficient for thee
Because my strength is made perfect in thy weakness.'
So I understand that when a man can do nothing
And when he comes to that far knowledge
Only then is Thy divine power recognized
And his soul freed to turn to Thee.


Morning Poem, by Mary Oliver

9/18/2015

 
Picture

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches--
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead--
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging--

there is stil
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted--

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.


A Secret Life, by Stephen Dunn

9/11/2015

 
Picture
A Secret Life                                               
By Stephen Dunn

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than 
why you don't say what you think 
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you've just made love
and feel you'd rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you're brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant would object to.
It becomes what you'd most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write last night
it's like a small fire
in a clearing, it's what 
radiates and what can hurt
if you get close to it.
It's why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who'll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.

Tread in Solitude, from the German of V. Schoffel

9/7/2015

 
Picture
Tread in solitude your pathway,
Quiet heart and undismayed.
You will know things strange, mysterious,
Which to you no voice has said.

Wile the crowd of petty hustlers
Grasps at vain and meager things,
You will see a great world rising
Where soft sacred music rings.

Leave the dusty road to others,
Spotless keep your soul and bright,
As the radiant ocean’s surface
When the sun is taking flight.

-from the German of V. Schoffel


Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann~

2/17/2014

 
Picture
Desiderata 

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism. 

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
No less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.


Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952

Beannacht (Irish Blessing), by John O'Donohue

1/2/2014

 
Picture
Beannacht (Irish Blessing)

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

Beannacht




The house was quiet and the world was calm, by Wallace Stevens

7/29/2013

 
Picture
The house was quiet and the world was calm
 

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
                                                                 The access of perfection to the page.

                                                                 And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
                                                                 In which there is no other meaning, itself

                                                                 Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
                                                                 Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

                                                                 By Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)

                                                              Posted 7/29/13 on Poetry Chaikhana <ivan@poetry-chaikhana.com>

A Garden Beyond Paradise, by Rumi

7/1/2013

 
Picture
A Garden Beyond Paradise

by Rumi

Everything you see has its roots
    in the unseen world.
The forms may change,
    yet the essence remains the same.

Every wondrous sight will vanish,
every sweet word will fade.
    But do not be disheartened,
The Source they come from is eternal--
growing, branching out,
    giving new life and new joy.

Why do you weep?--
That Source is within you,
and this whole world
    is springing up from it.

The Source is full,
its waters are ever-flowing;
    Do not grieve,
    drink your fill!
Don't think it will ever run dry--
This is the endless Ocean!

From the moment you came into this world,
a ladder was placed in front of you
    that you might transcend it.

From earth, you became plant,
from plant you became animal.
Afterwards you became a human being,
endowed with knowledge, intellect and faith.

Behold the body, born of dust--
    how perfect it has become!

Why should you fear its end?
When were you ever made less by dying?

When you pass beyond this human form,
no doubt you will become an angel
and soar through the heavens!

But don't stop there.
Even heavenly bodies grow old.

Pass again from the heavenly realm
    and plunge into the ocean of Consciousness.
Let the drop of water that is you
    become a hundred mighty seas.

But do not think that the drop alone
becomes the Ocean--
    the Ocean, too, becomes the drop!


We Remember Them

12/21/2012

 
Picture
We Remember Them
 

In the rising of the sun and its going down,
We Remember Them.
In the bowing of the wind and in the chill of winter,
We Remember Them.
In the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring.
We Remember Them.
In the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer,
We Remember Them.
In the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn.
We Remember Them.
In the beginning of the year and when it ends,
We Remember Them.
When we are weary and in need of strength,
We Remember Them.
When we are lost and sick of heart,
We Remember Them.
When we have joys and special celebrations we yearn to share,
We Remember Them.
Sp long as we live, they too shall live, for they are part of us.
We Remember Them.

~From the Jewish Book Of Prayer~


<<Previous
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    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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