Poet's Corner

[Mindful]

"The worst thing we ever did
was put God in the sky
out of reach
pulling the divinity
from the leaf,
sifting out the holy from our bones,
insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement
through everything we’ve made
a hard commitment to see as ordinary,
stripping the sacred from everywhere
to put in a cloud man elsewhere,
prying closeness from your heart.
The worst thing we ever did
was take the dance and the song
out of prayer
made it sit up straight
and cross its legs
removed it of rejoicing
wiped clean its hip sway,
its questions,
its ecstatic yowl,
its tears.
The worst thing we ever did is pretend
God isn’t the easiest thing
in this Universe
available to every soul
in every breath"

~ Chelan Harkin, in poetry book 'Susceptible to Light'

Art: “Mycelium Dreaming” by Autumn Skye.

 

[Mindful]

 

[BackAgain]

One of my faves:

Roses are grey.
Violets are grey.
I’m colorblind. ​

 

[Mindful]

 

[Mindful]

"Don’t walk in front of me,
I may not follow.
Don’t walk behind me.
I may not lead.
Walk beside me,
just be my friend."

Albert Camus

 

[Mindful]

If you are wise, you will slip away occasionally to the secret chambers of self-imposed seclusion. Four faithful friends await you there: Solitude, Stillness, Silence, and Serenity. Indeed, they are more than friends; they are cradles of creativity.
~ William Arthur Ward

~ Art 'Delicious Solitude by Frank Bramley

 

[Mindful]

When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.

This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely. Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquility is reached. The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind.

JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace.

 

[Mindful]

“Oh, the summer night
Has a smile of light
And she sits on a sapphire throne.”
~ Barry Cornwall

Evening in Rural Monmouthshire, Wales, by Terry Winter.

 

[Mindful]

The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 

[beautress]

​

 

[Mindful]

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.”

~William Shakespeare, 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream'.

The Newlands Valley, regarded as one of the most picturesque and quiet valleys in the Lake District National Park, England.

 

[Mindful]

"...the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be...The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self."

- Erich Fromm

 

[lg325]

"...the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be...The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self."

- Erich Fromm

View attachment 681799

• “To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.” ... Erich Fromm

 

[Mindful]

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. It would help you to have a personal insight into the secrets of the human soul. Otherwise everything remains a clever intellectual trick, consisting of empty words and leading to empty talk. ~Carl Jung.

 

[Mindful]

"The war. Here I was a virgin.
Could you imagine getting your
ass blown off for the sake of
history before you even knew
what a woman was? Or owned an
automobile? What would I be
protecting? Somebody else.
Somebody else who didn't give a
shit about me. Dying in a war
never stopped wars from
happening."

Happy Birthday Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920-March 9, 1994)

 

[Mindful]

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.

Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

Louise Erdrich.

 

[Mindful]

"When you are young, you wait for the world to save you. You wait for that sorry note from your Mother, and a romance of a lifetime from that guy you had a crush on for the last 3 weeks. You think that a Europe trip would ease your worries away, and a 'miss you' text from that one person who you think about everyday but still don't talk to will help you live a little better. You are alive in your head more than this miserable physical world. You think that you are never going to be fine and maybe this is the best that you can have. But when you grow older, everything changes. You realize that grand gestures and other people do not save you, mundane things in your everyday life do.

You do not daydream of trips to soothe your mind anymore. Instead, you stand in front of the balcony and look at the glowing orange moon while sipping your cold coffee and somehow it makes you feel a little less lonely. It's as if the moon can look back at you and listen to all the rambles of your heart. You make a playlist for almost everything from cooking in the kitchen to finishing the last episode of your new favorite show. It's like a time capsule that you revisit all the time just to remember how you've lived your life. You buy fifty books in the fare, even the ones you have already read. You romanticize freshly cut green grass, and a cold cup of water, and a blue sky full of clouds, and the way trees dance with the storm, and that small lane in your neighborhood with magnolia and dogwood trees that looks like a scene from an 80's French movie. You collect cups, bowls and socks and wonder how weird it must look to love them.

You come home tired and lay on your sofa but the way your home smells makes you feel like you belong somewhere. You realize that intimacy isn't just physical or romantic. You feel it when someone comes to your room for the first time and looks at all your stuff and you find yourself telling them backstories, or when you tell someone a story about your childhood and they look at you like they understand you a little more and give you the warmest smile.

You watch that movie for the 30th time and eat ice cream and solve puzzles when you feel lonely instead of texting and stalking someone who is not good for your mental health. You catch sunsets every evening because you love the way they remind you that there's a new day ahead, and you like listening to the rustle of the leaves on a gloomy day. You live for your plants and your pets and the little pigeon in your balcony who coos every now and then. You appreciate home cooked meals more, and clean clothes and the way fixing your kitchen does you better than a motivational podcast.

And sometimes you pause just to notice your breath and the slow rise and fall of your chest and it makes you glad that you are here. Loving these mundane things have taught you more about beauty than a couple of heartbreak poems. You find that you have stopped giving in to unnecessary stress and you live your life by your intentions and not your habits. You empty your pockets and let go of all the things that are too heavy for you to carry.

And when someone offers you their half-hearted love, you smile and refuse because it took you a long time to love yourself and now that you finally know your worth, you have realised the way you deserve to be loved. After all, you have understood that finding yourself is closer to finding love. When you look back, you know that there is no need to stay in the past anymore. And instead of waiting for the world to save you, you finally learn to save yourself....."

— Rae Pathak, you are going to be okay.

Illustration by Sam Yang (@samdoesarts)

 

[lg325]

… Born in the heat of the desert
My mother died giving me life
Deprived of the love of a father
Blamed for the loss of his wife
You know Lord I've been in a prison
For something that I never done
It's been one hill after another
I've climbed them all one by one
… But this time, Lord you gave me a mountain
A mountain you know I may never climb
It isn't just a hill any longer
You gave me a mountain this time
… My woman got tired of heartaches
Tired of the grief and the strife
So tired of working for nothing
Just tired of being my wife
She took my one ray of sunshine
She took my pride and my joy
She took my reason for living
She took my small baby boy
… But this time, Lord you gave me a mountain
A mountain you know I may never climb
It isn't just a hill any longer
You gave me a mountain this time.
Author- ??????

 

[themirrorthief]

roses are red
violets are blue
most of these poems suck
and probably
yours does too

 

[Mindful]

roses are red
violets are blue
is there a price
for you to be nice
l’ll always be true