A Community of the Spirit
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
From Rumi
Poetry
Aware ~ Poem by D. H. Lawrence
Aware
Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze,Divesting herself of her golden shift, and soEmerging white and exquisite; and I in amazeSee in the sky before me, a woman I did not knowI loved, but there she goes and her beauty hurts my heart;I follow her down the night, begging her not to depart.~ D. H. Lawrence
Gifts ~ Poem by Sara Teasdale
Gifts
I gave my first love laughter,
I gave my second tears,
I gave my third love silence
Through all the years.
My first love gave me singing,
My second eyes to see,
But oh, it was my third love
Who gave my soul to me.
A Prayer in Spring ~ Poem by Robert Frost
A Prayer in Spring
OH, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.
Someone Like You ~ Poem by James Foley
Someone Like You
Some one like you makes the heart seem the lighter,
Some one like you makes the day’s work worth while,
Some one like you makes the sun shine the brighter,
Some one like you makes a sigh half a smile.
Life’s an odd pattern of briers and roses,
Clouds sometimes darken, nor sun shining through,
Then the cloud lifts and the sun light discloses
Near to me, dear to me—Some one like you.
Poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
If there be some weaker one,
Give me strength to help him on;
If a blinder soul there be,
Let me guide him nearer Thee.
Make my mortal dreams come true
With the work I fain would do;
Clothe with life the weak intent,
Let me be the thing I meant;
Let me find in Thine employ
Peace that dearer is than joy!John Greenleaf Whittier.
A Poem About Courage by Ralph Waldo Emerson
As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime;
“Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Talk Happiness a Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Talk happiness! The world is sad enough,
Without your woes. No path is wholly rough;
Look for the places that are smooth and clear
And speak of those who rest the weary ear
Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain
Of human discontent and grief and pain.
Talk health! The dreary, never changing tale
Of mortal maladies is worn and stale.
You cannot charm or interest or please,
By harping on that minor chord, disease.
Say you are well, or all is well with you,
And God shall hear your words and make them true.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Symbols ~ Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
SYMBOLS
From infinite longings finite deeds rise
As fountains spring toward far-off glowing skies,
But rushing swiftly upward weakly bend
And trembling from their lack of power descend—
So through the falling torrent of our fears
Our joyous force leaps like these dancing tears.
