Tag: poetry
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“Go to the limits”
“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 flameand make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you:…
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“august”
“When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth; all day my body accepts what it is. In the dark creeks that run by there is this…
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praying
“This isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks.” religious prayers often are about two things: asking for something, and “giving god your worries/cares/concerns.” but for oliver it was always about noticing. about bringing herself back to what is happening wherever she was, whether it be with the lilacs or the weeds in a vacant…
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quiet, vast and free of worry
“Time eludes measurement. What is a year? And ten years are nothing. To be an artist means not to count or reckon but to ripen like the tree that does not force its sap and, trustingly, stands through the storms of spring without fear that summer will not come. It will come. But it comes…
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“finally, i saw”
Oliver, on leaving the cycle of worrying: “I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the riversflow in the right direction, will the earth turnas it was taught, and if not how shallI correct it? Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,can I do better? Will I ever be able to…
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“the more loving one”
“Looking up at the stars, I know quite wellThat, for all they care, I can go to hell,But on earth indifference is the leastWe have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burnWith a passion for us we could not return?If equal affection cannot be,Let the more loving…
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my work
Remembering this poem by Mary Oliver today… My work is loving the world.Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird – equal seekers of sweetness.Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.Here the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let mekeep my…
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“quiet friend”
remembering this poem by Rilke today… Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you.Let this darkness be a bell towerand you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength.Move back and forth into the change.What is it like, such intensity of pain?If the drink…
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soft animal (excerpt)
touch your skinfeel your pulsenotice the distancenotice the warmthtouch your throatfeel it movelisten to quietlisten to paindon’t let yourself lose you in the messu don’t have to fit into this fucked up worlddon’t have say things when i have nothingdon’t have to touch the one who has hurt you don’t have to stay there when…
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“you will know it by its seriousness”
I’ve had this line of Rilke’s on a loop in my head, “Nearby is a country they call life, you will know it by its seriousness.” I’m trying to hold space for both things. Life is very serious and also incredibly silly. This is heavy but it is also light. I want this but also…