the best way out

The best way out
is always through.

~Robert Frost, (1874 – 1963)

miracles

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain,
surround us on every hand:
life itself is the miracle of miracles.

~George Bernard Shaw, (1856 – 1950)

 

A Light exists in Spring

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period –––
When March is scarcely here

~Emily Dickinson, (1830 – 1886)

 

so much is in bud

Beginnings

“From too much love of living,
Hope and desire set free,
Even the weariest river
Winds somewhere to the sea -“

But we have only begun
To love the earth.

We have only begun
To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?
– so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?
– we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision

how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.

Surely our river cannot
already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet-
there is too much broken
that must be mended,

too much hurt that we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.

~Denise Levertov, (1923 – 1997)

one is too few

If one daffodil is worth a thousand pleasures,
then one is too few.

~William Wordsworth, (1770 – 1850)

Hello, you who made the morning. . .

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety –

 

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light –

good morning, good morning, good morning.

 

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness. 

~Mary Oliver

It woke me early

It woke me early
and drew me outdoors.
A chickadee called,
a robin answered.
Fingers of wind traced
silken curlicues on the morning air,
and as I stood looking down
where the first tender shoots of crocuses
reached
from darkness toward light,
I felt it again –
Spring, returning to my heart.

~Amy

holy ground

Tread softly! All the earth is holy ground.

~Christina Rossetti, (1830 – 1894)