The Fountain (Denise Levertov)

The Fountain

 

Don't say, don't say there is no water

to solace the dryness at our hearts.

I have seen

 

the fountain springing out of the rock wall

and you drinking there. And I too

before your eyes

 

found footholds and climbed

to drink the cool water.

 

The woman of that place, shading her eyes,

frowned as she watched-but not because

she grudged the water,

 

only because she was waiting

to see we drank our fill and were

refreshed.

 

Don't say, don't say there is no water.

That fountain is there among its scalloped

green and gray stones,

 

it is still there and always there

with its quiet song and strange power

to spring in us,

 

up and out through the rock.

 

~ Denise Levertov

Holy and Incarnate One (Janet Morley)

Holy And Incarnate One
(Janet Morley)

Holy and incarnate one,
at whose unexpected touch
the ordinary world
is charged with God:

we pray for those
whose hardship is overwhelming, who cannot find you;
who live in poverty, anxiety, and hunger;
whose lives are fearful or lonely;
who are exploited, exhausted or ill.

For the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us.

We pray for those
whose ambition is overwhelming, who do not want to find you;
whose lives are choked with overwork or consumption;
who have chosen an unreal path;
who have hardened their hearts.

For the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us.

We pray for those
who have begun to find you, and are overwhelmed;
for whom the risk of healing is too painful;
who are afraid of your embrace,
and fear your energetic power
to reconstitute the world.

For the World was made flesh
and dwelt among us.  

(John 1:14)

Coyotes (Mark Jarman)

Coyotes

Is this world truly fallen? They say no.
For there's the new moon, there's the Milky Way,
There's the rattler with a wren's egg in its mouth,
And there's the panting rabbit they will eat.
They sing their wild hymn on the dark slope,
Reading the stars like notes of hilarious music.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

And yet we're crying over the stars again,
And over the uncertainty of death,
Which we suspect will divide us all forever.
I'm tired of those who broadcast their certainties,
Constantly on their cell phones to their redeemer.
Is this a fallen world? For them it is.
But there's that starlit burst of animal laughter.

The day has sent its fires scattering.
The night has risen from its burning bed.
Our tears are proof that love is meant for life
And for the living. And this chorus of praise,
Which the pet dogs of the neighborhood are answering
Nostalgically, invites our answer, too.
Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

~ Mark Jarman ~

 

(The Atlantic, May 2003

Moon (Billy Collins)

Moon

 

The moon is full tonight

an illustration for sheet music,

an image in Matthew Arnold

glimmering on the English Channel,

or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield

in one of the history plays.

 

It's as full as it was

in that poem by Coleridge

where he carries his year-old son

into the orchard behind the cottage

and turns the baby's face to the sky

to see for the first time

the earth's bright companion,

something amazing to make his crying seem small.

 

And if you wanted to follow this example,

tonight would be the night

to carry some tiny creature outside

and introduce him to the moon.

 

And if your house has no child,

you can always gather into your arms

the sleeping infant of yourself,

as I have done tonight,

and carry him outdoors,

all limp in his tattered blanket,

making sure to steady his lolling head

with the palm of your hand.

 

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees

in the corner of the orchard

and dark roses wave against a stone wall,

you can turn him on your shoulder

and walk in circles on the lawn

drunk with the light.

You can lift him up into the sky,

your eyes nearly as wide as his,

as the moon climbs high into the night.

 

~ Billy Collins ~

 

(Picnic, Lightning

Gregory Orr

Let's remake the world with words.

Not frivolously, nor

To hide from what we fear,

But with a purpose.

Let's,

As Wordsworth said, remove

"The dust of custom" so things

Shine again, each object arrayed

In its robe of original light.

 

And then we'll see the world

As if for the first time.

As once we gazed at the beloved

Who was gazing at us.

 

~ Gregory Orr ~

 

 

(Concerning The Book That Is the Body Of The Beloved)

 

What We Want (Linda Pastan)

What We Want

 

What we want

is never simple.

We move among the things

we thought we wanted:

a face, a room, an open book

and these things bear our names--

now they want us.

But what we want appears

in dreams, wearing disguises.

We fall past,

holding out our arms

and in the morning

our arms ache.

We don't remember the dream,

but the dream remembers us.

It is there all day

as an animal is there

under the table,

as the stars are there

even in full sun.

 

~ Linda Pastan ~

 

 

 

(Carnival Evening

The Bellringer (David Whyte)

The Bell Ringer

 

Consider the bell

ringer as an image

of the human soul,

he stands foursquare

on the stone flagged

ground, and surrounded

by a circle of communal

concentration

searches in his fixed

aloneness

for a world

beyond straight,

human,

eye to eye

discourse,

in this case

above him,

the collision of metal

worlds chiming

to each bend and lift

of the knees,

letting his weight bear down

on the rope,

creating out of the heave

and upward pull,

a hollowed out

brass utterance,

a resonant

on-going argument

for his continued presence,

independent

of daily mood

or the necessities

for a verbal

proclamation.

 

***

 

Let him stand there

then

for the human soul,

let his weight

come true on the rope,

the way we want to lean

into the center of things,

the way we want to

fall with the gravity

of the situation

and then afterwards

laugh and

defy it 

with an upward

ultimately untraceable

flight,

a great ungovernable

ringing

announcement

to the world

that something, somewhere,

has changed.

 

Consider

the bell ringer

as one of us,

attempting some

unachieved,

magnificent

difference in the world,

far above

and far beyond

the stone-closed

space we seem

to occupy.

 

Below

we're all

effort, listening

and willful concentration,

above,

like a moving sea,

another power

shoulders

just

for a moment

the whole burden,

lifts us

against our will,

lets us find

in the skyward pull

a needed antidote

to surface noise,

a gravity against gravity,

another way to hear

amid

the clamor of the heavens.

 

~ David Whyte ~

 

 

(Everything Is Waiting For You)

 

Ascension Blessing Poem (Jan Richardson)

Ascension Blessing 

Jan Richardson

I know how your mind
rushes ahead
trying to fathom
what could follow this.
What will you do,
where will you go,
how will you live?

You will want
to outrun the grief.
You will want
to keep turning toward
the horizon,
watching for what was lost
to come back,
to return to you
and never leave again.

For now
hear me when I say
all you need to do
is to still yourself
is to turn toward one another
is to stay.

Wait
and see what comes
to fill
the gaping hole
in your chest.

Wait with your hands open
to receive what could never come
except to what is empty
and hollow.

You cannot know it now,
cannot even imagine
what lies ahead,
but I tell you
the day is coming
when breath will
fill your lungs
as it never has before
and with your own ears
you will hear words
coming to you new
and startling.

You will dream dreams
and you will see the world
ablaze with blessing.

Wait for it.
Still yourself.
Stay.

God is God (Steve Earle)

God Is God :

(Steve Earle)

I believe in prophecy.

Some folks see things not everybody can see.

And, once in a while, they pass the secret along to you and me.

And I believe in miracles.

Something sacred burning in every bush and tree.

We can all learn to sing the songs the angels sing.

Yeah, I believe in God, and God ain't me.

I've traveled around the world,

Stood on mighty mountains and gazed across the wilderness.

Never seen a line in the sand or a diamond in the dust.

And as our fate unfurls,

Every day that passes I'm sure about a little bit less.

Even my money keeps telling me it's God I need to trust.

And I believe in God, but God ain't us.

God,in my little understanding, don't care what name I call.

Whether or not I believe doesn't matter at all.

I receive the blessings.

That every day on Earth's another chance to get it right.

Let this little light of mine shine and rage against the night.

Just another lesson

Maybe someone's watching and wondering what I got.

Maybe this is why I'm here on Earth, and maybe not.

Chorus:

But I believe in God, and God is God

Still to sing with heaven's song (Andrew E. Pratt)

HYMN
Words: Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) © 1999 Stainer & Bell Ltd
Tune: Birabus

Hidden God, I long to see you,
long to hear your voice;
here amid the haste and hurry,
need a reason to rejoice.

More than just this global grounding,
more than just a home,
far beyond the raging river,
far beyond this fazing foam.

Blinding light of realisation,
long to catch a trace;
source, and end, of contemplation,
long to sense your saving grace.

But, if I should never glimpse you
help me to go on;
give me hope and motivation
still to sing with heaven's song.

Vespers (John O'Donohue)

Vespers

 

As light departs to let the earth be one with night,

Silence deepens in the mind, and thoughts grow slow;

The basket of twilight brims over with colors

Gathered from within the sacred meadows of the day

And offered like blessings to the gathering Tenebrae.

 

After the day's frenzy, may the heart grow still,

Gracious in thought for all the day brought,

Surprises that dawn could never have dreamed:

The blue silence that came to still the mind,

The quiver of mystery at the edge of a glimpse,

The golden echoes of worlds behind voices.

 

Tense faces unable to hide what gripped the heart,

The abrupt cut of a glance or a word that hurt,

The flame of longing that distance darkened,

Bouquets of memory gathered on the heart's altar,

The thorns of absence in the rose of dream.

 

And the whole while the unknown underworld

Of the mind, turning slowly, in its secret orbit.

May the blessing of sleep bring refreshment and release

And the Angel of the moon call the rivers of dream

To soften the hardened earth of the outside life,

Disentangle from the trapped nets the hurts and sorrow,

And awaken the young soul for the new tomorrow.

 

~ John O'Donohue ~

 

(To Bless the

Miracles (Walt Whitman)

Miracles

 

Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,

Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge

of the water, 

Or stand under trees in the woods,

Or talk by day with anyone I love, or sleep in the bed

at night with anyone I love,

Or sit at the table at dinner with the rest,

Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,

Or watch honeybees busy around the hive

of a summer forenoon, 

Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,

Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining

so quiet and bright,

Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon

in spring;

These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread

with the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,

The fishes that swim-the rocks-the motion of the waves

-the ships with men in them,

What stranger miracles are there?

 

 

~ Walt Whitman ~

 

(Leaves of Grass