Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head
White and topaz
And misty red;
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
The aeons
Cannot vex or tire;
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill
I watch them marching
Stately and still.
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.
Scars remind us of what we’ve survived — but they don’t define us. In this episode, I reflect on both physical and emotional scars, from childhood injuries to grief and loss. Through poetry by William Stafford, Carl Sandburg, and David Whyte, we explore how healing transforms us, how letting go frees us, and how scars can become symbols of strength, not shame. If you carry your own scars — visible or hidden — this conversation is for you. Your best days aren’t behind you… they’re still waiting.
The stars are golden instants in the deep
Flawless expanse of night: the moon is set:
The river sleeps, entranced, a smooth cool sleep
Seeming so motionless that I forget
The hollow booming bridges, where it slides,
Dark with the sad looks that it bears along,
Towards a sea whose unreturning tides
Ravish the sighted ships and the sailors’ song.
I am wild, I will sing to the trees,
I will sing to the stars in the sky,
I love, I am loved, he is mine,
Now at last I can die!
I am sandaled with wind and with flame,
I have heart-fire and singing to give,
I can tread on the grass or the stars,
Now at last I can live!
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
WHEN Love awakens there shall be a radiance
Like to the sun’s setting on a rainy day,
The breathed-in air bring roses to your cheeks,
Your eyes shall shine like stars in softened sky ;
The clouds that lowered their black bosoms of late
Shall fondle you against their crimson breasts
And the moon, majestic, will mount the heavens
Mated in beauty with the death of eve ;
All time distilled to a moment’s sweetness ;
Life, glimmering, a jewel in your grasp,
Your soul spreading its wings at the touch
Of hand on hand, of lips upon your lips.
A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.
Not all stars have the same pull,
Not all thoughts wave to the sun,
Not many words have heart appeal
While I dream bygone love.
I still believe you’ll show
Your kindest loving glance to me
And take on a sweet red glow,
And get me to find you flowers.
I’ll pick the best one for you,
The subtlest scented blossom
That came to life at dawn,
That earth and heaven sing to.
Come as the fog, wrap me in shadow,
It’s you my heart calls out to,
A song I made for you alone
Still echoing, still waiting.
Pat O’Cotter
And Thou art One–One with th’ eternal hills,
And with the flaming stars, and with the moon,
Translucent, cold. The sentinel of noon
That clothes the sky in robes of light and fills
The earth with warmth, the flowering fields, the rills,
The waving trees, the south wind’s elfin rune,
Are One with Thee. All nature is in tune
With Thee, O Father, God–and if one wills
To humbly walk the fragrant, leaf-strewn path
And kneel in reverence ‘neath the vaulted sky,
Hearing the hymnals of the waving trees
And prayers of the soughing winds–what hath
He less of heaven in him than we, who cry,
“God in our creeds doth dwell and not in these?”
Robert Frost
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music — hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush’s breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went —
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn’t been.
