Wild Words: Ferociously Nourishing Poetry

Dear darkening ground

10/31/2021

Dear darkening ground,
you've endured so patiently the walls we've built,
perhaps you'll give the cities one more hour

and grant the churches and cloisters two.
And those that labor--let their work
grip them another five hours, or seven,

before you become forest again,
and water,
and widening wilderness
in that hour of inconceivable terror
when you take back your name
from all things.

Just give me a little more time!

I want to love the things
as no one has thought to love them,
until they're worthy of you and real.

- Rilke, Book of Hours, I 61

The Second Music

10/24/2021

"Ophelia" by Sir John Everett Millais.

Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,
one below the other, one easier to hear, the other

lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard
yet always present.

When all other things seem lively and real,
this one fades. Yet the notes of it

touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound
of the names laid over each child at birth.

I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.
If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,

the telling is so soft
that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,

becomes beautiful. I stop and stop again
to hear the second music.

I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.
All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart.

- Annie Lighthart

Heart Sutra

10/17/2021

"Luna's Care". Photo by Grandpa Scott Palmer.
Used with permission.

Beyond hope and fear
good and bad
low road or high road
curse or blessing
there is this moment
this invitation to arrive
on your knees
in your glory
awake.

The forestlight trembles
the mountains surge and quake
the meadows exhale wildflowers.
For even as you see, you are seen.
As you bless, you are blessed.
As you drink, you are drunk.
Nothing is outside of this.

Even when
we are dis-mantled
bone by bone
cell by cell
taken back
into creation's great belly
there is no where to go.

I once dreamed
we were a winged people
who had forgotten our wings
and then designed a whole world
whose sole purpose
was our re-membering.

Can you see us?
Violet feathers
silver sky
singing on the wind?

- Laura Weaver

She Inspires Me

10/10/2021

Grace and the Crow, by Red K. Elders

i heard a woman becomes herself
the first time she speaks
without permission

then, every word out of her mouth
a riot

say, beautiful
and point to the map of your body

say, brave
and wear your skin like a gown or a suit

say, hero
and cast yourself in the lead role

when a girl pronounces her own name
there is glory

when a woman tells her own story
she lives forever

all the women i know are perennials:
marigolds, daffodils-
soft things that refuse to die

if this poem is the only thing that survives me

tell them i grew a new tongue
tell them i built me a throne

tell them when we discovered life on another planet
it was a woman
and she built a bridge, not a border

i heard this is how you make history,
this is how you create a new world

- Denice Frohman

Come speak...without permission...

Enlightenment is a Gamble

10/3/2021

Time to cash in your chips
put your ideas and beliefs on the table.
See who has the bigger hand
you or the Mystery that pervades you.

Time to scrape the mind's shit
off your shoes
undo the laces
that hold your prison together
and dangle your toes into emptiness.

Once you've put everything
on the table
once all of your currency is gone
and your pockets are full of air
all you've got left to gamble with
is yourself.

Go ahead, climb up onto the velvet top
of the highest stakes table.
Place yourself as the bet.
Look God in the eyes
and finally
for once in your life
lose.

- Adyashanti

Dear darkening ground

The Second Music

Heart Sutra

She Inspires Me

Enlightenment is a Gamble

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Dear darkening ground

The Second Music

Heart Sutra

She Inspires Me

Enlightenment is a Gamble

Archives

Categories

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