A gentler world begins
in the way you touch your heart.
Be soft with the light inside you.
Caress your body with this breath.
God is nothing else
but the place where the sun comes up
in your chest.
You are the glimmering destination.
You are the golden honey daubed
on the bread of the ordinary.
Whatever is perfect,
whatever is heavenly,
begins here.

​    - Alfred LaMotte

...Want only what is true.
This will lead you to the well of your deepest sorrows.
Follow that passageway, all the way down;
Become the dark emptiness of your absent core.
Be still. Don't measure the waiting.
Be still. Let the waiting become a fire.
Be still. Let the fire show you its secret heart;
a strand of clear light running through you.
Gather yourself there, and the luminous universe opens.
In the vast expanse, fathomless, infinite ocean of light,
Lose yourself, and find yourself, and become what you already are.

    - Jennifer Welwood

The gentleness of the slant October light
cancels whatever else we might have thought.
It is a hard world, empty and cruel;
but this light, oh Jesus Christ!  This light!

The maple leaves, passive in front of the house,
are laved in it, abandoned, green gone.
That nothing else should matter but this light.
Gentleness, gentleness, the light.

​    - William Bronk

Is the question from the back of the room; I cannot
Quite see the student asking it, but it’s deep-voiced
And challenging and I assume it’s a guy. Because I
Want to rub music and language together and gawk
At the flames, I say. Because poetry, if it takes fire,
Cracks people’s masks, and assaults arrogance, and
Sucks you beneath the surface of words towards why
We use them. Because we have been singing before
There ‘were’ words and it’s healthy to remember that.
Because the great poems are about you and me both
And there is damned little we will be able to discuss
In the normal flow of the river and it’s good for both
Of us to stand together quietly for a while in a poem.
Because why the hell not ? What is it exactly that we
Should count as time better spent ? You cannot spare
Two minutes for a poem ? Sure, it might be pompous
Arty muck, and you demand your two minutes back,
But what if it isn’t ? What if it shivers you, or startles
You awake, or makes you weep remembering a time
When you sang all day too, and everything was made
Of music and light and colors and slabs of shimmer ?
‘What if’, brother – that’s my answer to your question.

    - Brian Doyle

​The sound of a bell
Still reverberating,
or a blackbird calling
from a corner of the field,
asking you to wake
into this life,
or inviting you deeper
into the one that waits.

Either way
takes courage,
either way wants you
to be nothing
but that self that
is no self at all,
wants you to walk
to the place
where you find
you already know
how to give
every last thing
away.

The approach
that is also
the meeting
itself,
without any
meeting
at all.

That radiance
you have always
carried with you
as you walk
both alone
and completely
accompanied
in friendship
by every corner
of the world
crying
Allelujah.

    - David Whyte

I watched a glint of morning sunlight
climbing a thread of spider's silk
in a gentle breeze. It shinnied up
from the tip of a dewy stalk of grass
to an overhanging branch, then
disappeared into the leaves. But soon
another followed, and then another,
glint after glint, and though they made
no sound, what I could see was music,
not melody but one clear, shining note
plucked over and over, as if the sun
were tuning the day, then handing it
to me so I could be the one to play it.

​    - Ted Kooser

​I acknowledge my status as a stranger:   
Inappropriate clothes, odd habits   
Out of sync with wasp and wren.   
I admit I don’t know how   
To sit still or move without purpose.   
I prefer books to moonlight, statuary to trees.   

But this lawn has been leveled for looking,   
So I kick off my sandals and walk its cool green.   
Who claims we’re mere muscle and fluids?   
My feet are the primitives here.   
As for the rest—ah, the air now   
Is a tonic of absence, bearing nothing   
But news of a breeze.

​    - Rita Dove

"Never," said my father,
"Never cut a pomegranate
through the heart.  It will weep blood.
Treat it delicately, with respect.

Just slit the upper skin across four quarters.
This is a magic fruit,
so when you split it open, be prepared
for the jewels of the world to tumble out,
more precious than garnets,
more lustrous than rubies,
lit as if from inside.
Each jewel contains a living seed.
Separate one crystal.
Hold it up to catch the light.
Inside is a whole universe.
No common jewel can give you this."

Afterwards, I tried to make necklaces
of pomegranate seeds.
The juice spurted out, bright crimson,
and stained my fingers, then my mouth.
I didn't mind.  The juice tasted of gardens
I had never seen, voluptuous
with myrtle, lemon, jasmine
and alive with parrots' wings.

The pomegranate reminded me
that somewhere I had another home.

    - Imtiaz Dharker

Lean in loved one
To the center of the circle
To the metronome
That beats all hearts together

Allow your breath to ease
As you watch
Each inhale
Sweet with life
Bowing to this moment
Each exhale
Loosening the grip of form

Begin the listening
From deep within
Clarity, slowly emerging
As pause makes room
For the light of wisdom
To rise from fog's damp obscurity

Recall through your bones
The collective knowing
That's been a part of us
For a million years

You are the vessel through which
The yet undisclosed is spoken
The soil upon which
Love blossoms
And life remembers herself again and again

    - Lynn Robinson

​​i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings;and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

​    - e.e. cummings