There is Something

Ted Loder

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Holy One,

there is something I wanted to tell you,
but there have been errands to run,
bills to pay,
arrangements to make,
meetings to attend,
friends to entertain,
washing to do...
and I forget what it is I wanted to say to you,
and mostly I forget what I'm about
or why.
O God,
don't forget me, please,
for the sake of Jesus Christ....

O Father in Heaven,
perhaps you've already heard what I wanted to tell you,
What I wanted to ask is,
forgive me,
heal me,
increase my courage, please.
Renew in me a little of love and faith,
and a sense of confidence,
and a vision of what it might mean
to live as though you were real,
and I mattered,
and everyone was sister and brother.

What I wanted to ask in my blundering way is
don't give up on me, don't become too sad about me,
but laugh with me,
and try again with me,
and I will with you, too.

from Guerrillas of Grace

Be Melting a Snow, Rumi

Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi translated by Coleman Barks
Be Melting Snow

Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me.
Is someone here? I ask.
The moon. The full moon is inside your house.
My friends and I go running out into the street.
I'm in here, comes a voice from the house, but we aren't listening.
We're looking up at the sky.
My pet nightingale sobs like a drunk in the garden.
Ringdoves scatter with small cries, Where, Where.
It's midnight. The whole neighborhood is up and out
in the street thinking, The cat burglar has come back.
The actual thief is there too, saying out loud,
Yes, the cat burglar is somewhere in this crowd.
No one pays attention.
Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
or things that have happened to you
There's no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
A white flower grows in quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower.

A Violin At Dusk, Luzette Woodworth Reese

A Violin at Dusk by Lizette Woodworth Reese     Stumble to silence, all you uneasy things,  That pack the day with bluster and with fret.  For here is music at each window set;  Here is a cup which drips with all the springs  That ever bud a cowslip flower; a roof  To shelter till the argent weathers break;  A candle with enough of light to make  My courage bright against each dark reproof.  A hand's width of clear gold, unraveled out  The rosy sky, the little moon appears;  As they were splashed upon the paling red,  Vast, blurred, the village poplars lift about.  I think of young, lost things: of lilacs; tears;  I think of an old neighbor, long since dead.        Today's poem is in the public domain.

About This Poem  Lizette Woodworth Reese's poetry often evokes images of her rural childhood. This imagery along with her condensed form and colloquial language influenced younger poets, including Edna St. Vincent Millay and Louise Bogan.

Prayer From A Mouse, Sarah Messer

Prayer from a Mouse

by Sarah Messer

Dimensionless One, can you hear me? 

Me with the moon ears, caught 

in ice branches? 

 

Beneath the sky's long house, 

beneath the old snake tree, 

I pray to see even a fragment 

of you-- 

whiskers ticking 

 

a deserted street, 

a staircase leading 

to the balcony 

of your collarbone. 

 

Beloved King of Stars, I cannot 

contain my animal movements. 

 

For you I stay like a mountain. 

For you I stay like a straight pin. 

 

But in the end, the body leaves us 

its empty building. 

 

Midnight petulant 

as a root cellar. Wasps crawling 

in sleeves. I sleep 

 

with my tail over 

my face, enflamed. 

 

Oh Great Cataloguer 

of Snow Leaves, I pray 

that you may appear 

and carry every piece 

of my fur in your hands.

A Book Said Dream And I Do, Barbara Ras

A Book Said Dream and I Do

by Barbara Ras

There were feathers and the light that passed through feathers.  

There were birds that made the feathers and the sun that made the light. 

The feathers of the birds. made the air soft, softer 

than the quiet in a cocoon waiting for wings,

 stiller than the stare of a hooded falcon. 

But no falcons in this green made by the passage of parents.

 No, not parents, parrots flying through slow sleep 

 casting green rays to light the long dream. 

 If skin, dew would have drenched it, but dust 

 hung in space like the stoppage of 

 time itself, which, after dancing with parrots, 

 had said, Thank you. I'll rest now. 

 It's not too late to say the parrot light was thick 

 enough to part with a hand, and the feathers softening 

 the path, fallen after so much touching of cheeks, 

 were red, hibiscus red split by veins of flight 

 now at the end of flying. 

 Despite the halt of time, the feathers trusted red 

and believed indolence would fill the long dream, 

 until the book shut and time began again to hurt.

Mansur al-Hallaj

You glide between the heart and its casing
By Mansur al- Hallaj
(9th Century)
English version by Bernard Lewis

You glide between the heart and its casing as tears glide from the eyelid.
You dwell in my inwardness, in the depths of my heart, as souls dwell in bodies.
Nothing passes from rest to motion unless you move it in hidden ways,
O new moon.

Perhaps by Shu Ting

Perhaps...

 

Perhaps these thoughts of ours 

will never find an audience 

Perhaps the mistaken road 

will end in a mistake 

Perhaps the lamps we light one at a time 

will be blown out, one at a time 

Perhaps the candles of our lives will gutter out 

without lighting a fire to warm us.

 

Perhaps when all the tears have been shed 

the earth will be more fertile 

Perhaps when we sing praises to the sun 

the sun will praise us in return 

Perhaps these heavy burdens 

will strengthen our philosophy 

Perhaps when we weep for those in misery 

we must be silent about miseries of our own

 

Perhaps 

Because of our irresistible sense of mission 

We have no choice

 

~ Shu Ting ~

 

(Translated by K. Kizer in Cool, Calm & Collected)