FAMOUS

by Naomi Shihab Nye  b. 1952

The river is famous to the fish. 

The loud voice is famous to silence,   

which knew it would inherit the earth   

before anybody said so.   

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds   

watching him from the birdhouse.   

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.   

The idea you carry close to your bosom   

is famous to your bosom.   

The boot is famous to the earth,   

more famous than the dress shoe,   

which is famous only to floors. 

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it   

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.   

I want to be famous to shuffling men   

who smile while crossing streets,   

sticky children in grocery lines,   

famous as the one who smiled back. 

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,   

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,   

but because it never forgot what it could do.

See also http://shenandoahliterary.org/blog/2014/10/famous-by-naomi-shihab-nye/

THE WAY IT IS

by William Stafford

There's a thread you follow.  It goes among 
things that change.  But it doesn't change.  
People wonder about what you are pursuing. 
You have to explain about the thread.  
But it is hard for others to see.  
While you hold it you can't get lost.  
Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; 
and you suffer and get old.  
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.  
You don't ever let go of the thread.

IT IS I WHO MUST BEGIN

by Vaclav Havel

Once I begin, once I try
here and now,
right where I am,
not excusing myself
by saying that things
would be easier elsewhere,
without grand speeches and
ostentatious gestures,
but all the more persistently
-to live in harmony
with the "voice of Beings"' as I
understand it within myself
-as soon as I begin that,
I suddenly discover,
to my surprise, that
I am neither the only one,
nor the first,
nor the most important one
to have set out
upon that road.   ...
Whether all is really lost
or not depends entirely on
whether or not I am lost.  ...

East Coker

by T. S. Eliot

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years--
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it,  and so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.  And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate--but there is no competition--
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again:  and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious.  But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying.  The rest is not our business.

Three Short Selections

Making Contact    by Virginia Satir

I believe
The greatest gift
I can conceive of having
from anyone
is
to be seen by them,
heard by them,
to be understood 
and touched by them.
The greatest gift
I can give
is
to see, hear, understand
and to touch
another person.
When this is done
I feel 
contact has been made.

From the book Teaching With Fire
*****************************************************

From Teaching a Stone to Talk    by Annie Dillard

In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us.  But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world's rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here.  This is given.  It is not learned.

******************************************
And one for John:

Make Music With Your Life    by Bob O'Meally

Make music with your life
a
    jagged
silver tune
cuts every deepday madness
Into jewels   that you wear

Carry 16 bars of old blues
wit/you
everywhere you go
walk thru azure sadness
howlin
Like a guitar player

Go to the Limits of your Longing

by Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Book of Hours, I 59

The Bare Tree

by Samuel Menashe    American, b. 1925


      My mother once said to me, "When one sees
the tree in leaf one thinks the beauty of the tree
is in its leaves, and then one sees the bare tree."

Dedicated to my family of trees.  M.E.

Lost

by David Wagoner,  American,  b. 1926

Stand still.  The trees ahead and the bushes
   beside you
Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying
    Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost.  Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are.  You must let it find you. 

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry,   born 1934-

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives
   may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great
   heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.  For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

When He Heard the Owls at Midnight

From The Song of Hiawatha,  by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

   
     When he heard the owls at midnight
Hooting, laughing in the forest,
"What is that?" he said, "Nokomis?"
And the good Nokomis answered:
That is but the owl and owlet,
Talking in their native language,
Talking, scolding at each other." 

     Then the little Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How they built their nests in Summer,
Where they hid themselves in Winter,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Call them "Hiawatha's Chickens."

      Of all beasts he learned the language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How the beavers built their lodges,
Where the squirrels hid their acorns,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Why the rabbit was so timid,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them "Hiawatha's Brothers."

First Place in the Poetry Slam

Today's poem is very special and personal.  It was written by a 7th grader at Ecker Hill Middle School on the spur of the moment to enter the school poetry slam.
He won first place and the approval of his English teacher, as well as the admiration of his grandmother....me.

This is the time,
The time where the future generation moves on.
Out of the nest,
Learning to fly,
Joining the whole as a true citizen.

Responsibilities will come up
And slap you in the face,
But you just have to get up
And keep moving.

Because life is a test,
A test of character,
A test of responsibility,
A test of who you are.

And that is all life will ever be.

by Will Watkins

My Thanks Come Easily--At Times

My thanks come easily

When my fortunes rise

And my will is King

And all the world seems my estate.

My thanks come easily such times.

But wait...

Today, let me reflect

Upon those thanks I owe

But which I find

Express themselves less fluently.

Today, let me remember to give thanks,

Not only for the sunlight,

But for those darker hours

That teach Fortitude.

Let me profess, today, a grateful heart,

Not merely for successes I may know,

But as truly for those failures

That teach Humility.

Let me express my gratitude

For all those petty, inner conflicts

Which, once resolved, breed new Serenity,

And for those small, distressing fears

That have their ways of building Hope.

Let me breathe appreciation

For all those poignant slights

That teach me Thoughtfulness,

And for each violated trust

That leaves Loyalty as its lesson.

And let me not forget, today

To whisper thanks for these:

The contempt that teaches Pity,

The tear that teaches Joy,

The pain that teaches Mercy,

And the loneliness that teaches Love.

So, now...

Let me reflect upon these thanks I owe...

And let my thanks come easily today.

--Bernard J. Patrick

Clothesline by Marilyn Maciel

i

you

us

them

those people

wouldn't it be lovely

if one could

live

in a constant state

of we ?

some of the most

commonplace

words

can be some of the biggest

dividers

they

what if there was 

no they ?

what if there was only

us?

if words could be seen

as they float out

of our mouths

would we feel no

shame

as they passed beyond

our lips ?

if we were to string

our words

on a communal clothesline

would we feel proud

as our thoughts

flapped in the

breeze ?

I found this delightful poem in a book by Patti Digh titled

Life is a Verb.  It is very thought-provoking, yes?

A Tribute to Mothers

The Woman with the Wild-Grown Hair 
Relaxes after Another Long Day

by Nita Penfold

After she drives her younger daughter to school, struggling
to get the wheelchair out without running over her foot and
the car stalls for the fifth time as she leaves because of
the cracked distributor cap;

after she meets the new cashier's stare over her food stamps
at the Star Market going to buy soda crackers and soup and
gingerale for another daughter who is home sick after
throwing up her entire dinner in the middle of the night;

after she exchanges babysitting for their rent in the main house
downstairs with the sweet fat/baby and blonde sister who owns
nine Little Ponies in the pink castle and a Pig-Faced Doll
with its very own brass bed;

after she lugs out the deep steel pot to catch the rain dripping
from the skylight and kills the horde of fungus/gnats in the
bathroom with their thin wings splayed against the white walls
like Christmas miniatures of squashed angels;

after she spends an hour with the child psychologist explaining
why she thinks her marriage failed and how it has affected
the children's lives and she wonders aloud if she can take
much more of this and still be able to write poems;

after the dishes, the laundry, the second daughter's throwing-up,
after trying to scrub the permanent ring out of the clawfoot tub 
and fixing the cabinet door so it won't scrape the wall when 
it opens;

after all of this, she soaks in bubbled bathwater and thinks of
Job's unnamed wife, caught between a righteous husband and his
war between God and Satan--how that woman must have tried to
smother the heavenly fire with her mantle as it destroyed their 
sheep and servants, and--fiercely--dug at the stones that killed
her ten children when the great wind breathed from the wilderness
to topple their home, how she tended Job's sores, washing him
gently with cool water, soothing the flame of Satan's tongue,
comforting him, and how she stood alone while he debated his
faith with God, proved himself again worthy to give this wife 
another ten children to raise.

As she rubs her tight thighs with a worn washcloth, she thinks
about the faith of women creating foundations out of their flesh,
becoming the anonymous survivors of daily battles,
that never seem to win the war. 

A Billy Collins Favorite

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

What is your definition of Kindness?

This poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, is one of my all-time favorites which I like to revisit frequently.  It should be memorized and recited often, IMHO.   I have also been pondering what kindness means to me.  I want to add that kindness is often the little things, like acknowledging emails and texts with small signs, like a happy face, things that let people know you see them, or you hear them, and they matter in your life.  Even a "Like" on a Facebook page, or a simple smile at a stranger can be a moment of kindness.   "Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."  (Robert Brault)  More and more, as I age, kindness seems like the "little things".  This poem also has a generous amount of compassion, which comes through age and experience.  

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

 "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye,

 from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems.

 © Eighth Mountain Press, 1995. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014

A new year is always a chance to "Do Over".  We are standing on a threshold of hope.   We don't get that opportunity very often.  We have to be responsible for what we have created based on our choices, and sometimes it's not very pretty. 

Every January 1st we get to review, release and recreate aspects of our selves on our journey of discovery and awakening.  In the musical, Scrooge, there is a song that sums up this determination to be a more intentional human than we have been in the past.   While it is probably not the best poetry, it's meaning is focused and pertinent.   Enjoy your journey of creating the best self you desire as you begin again with renewed hope.

      I'll Begin Again

Scrooge: 
 
I'll begin again 
I will build my life 
I will live to know 
I fulfilled my life 
I'll begin today 
Throw away the past 
And the future I build 
Will be something that will last 
I will take the time 
That I have left to live 
And I'll give it all 
That I have left to give 
I will live my days 
For my fellow men 
And I'll live in praise 
Of that moment when 
I was able to begin again 

I'll begin again 
I will change my fate 
I will show the world 
That it is not too late 
I will never stop 
While I still have time 
'Till I stand at the top 
Of the mountain I must climb 
I will start anew 
I will make amends 
And I will make quite certain 
That the story ends 
On a note of hope 
On a strong amen 
And I'll thank the world 
And remember when 
I was able to begin again 
I'll begin again! 

SELF-PORTRAIT

(Many people have heard Oriah Mountain Dreamer's more famous version of this, called The Invitation, which begins, "It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.  I want to know..."
She does attribute her poem to David Whyte's original as her seed thought.  Here is his poem.)

Self-Portrait
by David Whyte

It doesn't interest me if there is one God 
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel 
abandoned,
if you can know despair or see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you.  If you can look back
with firm eyes, 
saying this is where I stand.  I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living,
falling toward
the center of your longing.  I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

I Am Too Alone

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough

to make every minute holy.

I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough

just to lie before you like a thing,

shrewd and secretive.

I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,

as it goes toward action,

and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times

when something is coming near,

I want to be with those who know secret things

or else alone.

I want to be a mirror for your whole body,

and I never want to be blind, or to be too old

to hold up your old and swaying picture.

I want to unfold.

I don't want to stay folded anywhere,

because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

And I want my grasp of things

true before you.  I want to describe myself

like a painting that I looked at

closely for a long time,

like a saying that I finally understood,

like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother,

like a ship that took me safely

through the wildest storm of all.

from 

Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, 

translated by Robert Bly (Harper & Row, 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

This is the final stanza in the long poem Renascence, which is a beautiful piece of writing.

The world stands out on either side

No wider than the heart is wide;

Above the world is stretched the sky,—

No higher than the soul is high.

The heart can push the sea and land

Farther away on either hand;

The soul can split the sky in two,

And let the face of God shine through.

But East and West will pinch the heart

That can not keep them pushed apart;

And he whose soul is flat—the sky

Will cave in on him by and by.