Words of Reflection

The joy of springtime! These poems reflect and enliven our weekly class themes. I’m grateful to find and share these expressions of Awareness and Presence.

Sympathetic Joy (Mudita)

Joy (Hilda Conkling)

Joy is not a thing you can see.
It is what you feel when you watch waves breaking,
Or when you peer through a net of woven violet stems
In Spring grass… (entire poem here)

 

Kind, Loving Presence (Metta and Karuna)

Compassion (Miller Williams)

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don’t want it… (entire poem here)

Black Cherries (W.S. Merwin)

Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day’s colors in the day’s shadows … (entire poem here)

 

Effortless Action

Daily Praise (Miranda July)

Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it’s worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person’s face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It’s okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

 

Finding Neutral (Sherry Sheehan) The poet is a longtime participant in our Friday Mindfulness Meditation practice group, now online

Friday at four

in a room at the Pinole Library

 

Folding chairs form a circle

to hold our selves,

 

muscles and bones at rest,

minds attending to each breath,

 

vehicles un-revved,

finding neutral in slowed flesh

 

that moves

mere millimeters for many minutes

 

as we follow the pull

toward oblivious presence,

 

leaving the world outside

for interior residence.

 

Effortless (Clea McLemore)

You

Were like breaths breathed

I, Inhaling, exhaling

loving you

Without even trying

Effortless

 

Paradoxes of Being

(by Anais Nin, read by Charles in Friday’s meditation 5/5)

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically.

We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly

We grow partially.

We are relative.

We are mature in one realm, childish in another.

The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. 

We are made-up of layers, cells, constellations.

(Anais Nin)

[Angela Anais Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell (Feb 21, 1902-Jan 14, 1977; French-born American Diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica.]

 

Slowing Down (the breath & life)

All the Instructions Needed (Danna Faulds) 

posted by the poet’s permission

 

Open the back door

as well as the front.

Open the skylights and

side windows. Open your

heart and the door

to the basement. Let the 

divine pour in, presence

as palpable as breath —

and then sit in this

awareness. These are all

the instructions needed

for a full and joyous life.

 

Curiosity and Appreciation 

The Good News (Thich Nhat Hanh)

The good news

they do not print.

The good news

we do print.

We have a special edition every moment,

and we need you to read it.

The good news is that you are alive,

that the linden tree is still there,

standing firm in the harsh winter. (entire poem here)

 

Invitation (Mary Oliver)

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air… (entire poem here)

 

Walk Slowly (Danna Faulds)

Lila (Playfulness)

Warning (Jenny Joseph)

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. (entire poem here)

A new season — the last days of one year and the beginning of the next — moment by moment. These poems reflect and enliven our weekly class themes. It’s truly a joy to curate these expressions of Awareness and Presence.

Inner Light

Solstice (Robyn Sarah)

A sly gift it is, that on the year’s
shortest day, the sun
stays longest in this house– (entire poem here)

 

Kind Presence

Twenty-four Hours (Thich Nhat Hanh, from Peace is Every Step)

Every morning, when we wake up

we have twenty-four brand new hours to live.

What a precious gift!

We have the capacity to live in a way

that these twenty-four hours

will bring peace, joy and happiness

to ourselves and others. 

 

What Are You Practicing?

My Work is Loving the World (Mary Oliver)

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 half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished… (entire poem here)

 

From True Meditation (Adyashanti)

“Effortless doesn’t mean no effort; effortless means just enough effort to be vivid, to be present, to be here, to be now, to be bright…We each need to find out for ourselves what this means. Too much effort and we get too tight; too little effort and we get dreamy. Somewhere in the middle is a state of vividness and clarity and inner brightness.”

 

One Cleaning the Closet of the Mind (Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

how threadbare these thoughts

I’ve chosen to wear every day–

replacing them with nothing

 

For a New Year (Holly Wren Spaulding)

Let plain things please you again

and every ordinary Monday.

Bean soup in a white bowl,

firewood in your arms. 

The weight of longing. (entire poem here)

 

Being With Things As They Are

Smart Cookie (Richard Schiffman)

The fortune that you seek is in another cookie, 
was my fortune. So I’ll be equally frank—the wisdom 
that you covet is in another poem. The life that you desire  
is in a different universe. The cookie you are craving 
is in another jar. (entire poem here)

Fluent (John O’Donohue)

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding.

 

Threads (Rainer Maria Rilke)

“She who reconciles the ill-matched threads of her life, and weaves them gratefully into a single cloth— it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall and clears it for a different celebration   where the one guest is you…” (entire poem here)

 

Radiating Love

Aimless Love (Billy Collins)

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table. (entire poem here)

 

Because (Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

So I can’t save the world—
can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around
every frightened child, can’t
foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who
feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency. I practice
walking down the street heart first. (entire poem here)

 

Rest

“Tension is who you think you should be; relaxation is who you are.” (Chinese Proverb)

“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.” (Thich Nhat Hanh)

 

Resting with the Breath

May there only be a Letting Go (Lissa Edmond)

May I be with this breath
resting my senses
against the way
the body breathes
rising and falling
in response to the breath’s
comings and goings. (entire poem here)

Each week I settle into my favorite chair to gather poems that might resonate with our class theme. I always find my body-mind-heart uplifted, soothed, somehow renewed. And then, together in class, we share in the poem’s invitation. (Photo Credit: Mindful Eating, Louise Taylor, Sept 2022)

Breathe into Presence

One conscious breathe in and out is a meditation. (Eckhart Tolle)

Ancient Language (Hannah Stephenson)

If you stand at the edge of the forest
and stare into it
every tree at the edge will blow a little extra
oxygen toward you

It has been proven
Leaves have admitted it (entire poem here)

 

Take Love For Granted (Jack Ride)

Assume it’s in the kitchen,
under the couch, high
in the pine tree out back,
behind the paint cans
In the garage… (entire poem here)

Grace

Heirlooms (Jim Keller, Camus’ Camel)

This watch reads a half hour slow

It’s too damn complicated to change it

Easier to change the time in my head

It was my father’s watch

The wrist band is much too long

I got my small bones from my mother

my brain from my father I hope

She got Alzheimer’s

along with her three sisters

This is a Seiko watch

self-winding

wound by my movement

It’ll keep going for a few hours

after my heart stops ticking

My heart is from my father I think

 

Connection and Acceptance

Sometimes I am Startled Out of Myself (Barbara Crooker)

like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking,
flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek
across the sky made me think about my life, the places
of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief
has strung me out to dry.  And then the geese come calling…. (entire poem here)

The Poet Compares Human Nature To The Ocean from Which We Came (Mary Oliver)

The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,

it can lie down like silk breathing

or toss havoc shoreward; it can give…(entire poem here)

 

“Every thought we think, every feeling we have, every word we speak goes out into the atmosphere to either heal or harm. Let us be healers. Let us be harmless.” (John R. Price – Contributed by Ann Berry)

 

Resilience

Adrift (Mark Nepo)

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze… (entire poem here)

Become a Lake

Once an unhappy young apprentice came to an old master and told the master that he was deeply sad and asked for a solution. The old master instructed the unhappy young apprentice to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. Then he asked “How does it taste?” “Terrible!” spat the young apprentice. The master nodded and asked the young apprentice to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to a nearby lake and the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake. The older master said, “now drink the lake.” The apprentice cupped his hands and drank. Again, the old master asked, “How does it taste?” “Good!” said the apprentice. The master then asked, “Do you taste the salt?” and the apprentice smiled and said, “No.” The master sat beside the trouble young apprentice and took his hands. “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same. But the amount we taste depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the wisest thing to do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.

Remembering Love is Essential as Oxygen

(Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking, so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

 

If Prayer Would Do It (Stephen Levine)

If prayer would do it
I’d pray.
If reading esteemed thinkers would do it
I’d be halfway through the Patriarchs.

If discourse would do it
I’d be sitting with His Holiness
every moment he has free.

If contemplation would do it
I’d have translated the Periodic Table
to hermit poems, converting
matter to spirit.

If even fighting would do it
I’d already be a blackbelt.

If anything other than love could do it
I’ve done it already
and left the hardest for last.

Each week I settle into my favorite chair to gather poems that might resonate with our class theme. I always find my body-mind-heart uplifted, soothed, somehow renewed. And then, together in class, we share in the poem’s invitation. 

The Space Between

Silence (Langston Hughes)

I catch the pattern Of your silence Before you speak I do not need To hear a word. In your silence Every tone I seek Is heard.

 

The Awakened Heart

One More Chapter in Letting Go (Rosemary Wahtola Trimmer)

Today it slipped into my daughter,

the seed that all is not right in the world.

 

In a matter of hours, already

the tap roots had grown beyond

 

my ability to pull them out.

I wonder if I have been wrong…(entire poem here)

 

Awe and Appreciation 

Theme inspired by awe-inspiring article Be Here Wow! (Wes “Scoop” Nisker) Audio version read by Wendy Beckerman (15 mins)

 

What Issa Heard (David Budbill)

Two hundred years ago Issa heard the morning birds singing sutras to this suffering world… (entire poem here)

 

Everything That Was Broken (Mary Oliver)

Everything that was broken has

forgotten its brokenness. I live

now in a sky-house, through every window the sun… (entire poem here)

 

“There are two ways to live your life; One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~ Albert Einstein

“One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, or of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” ~ Albert Einstein

 

“Tension is who you think you should be; Relaxation is who you are.” ~ Chinese Proverb

 

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (from The Little Prince)

While these poems support each week’s class theme, reading and listening to them also draws us together in the present moment. 

The Pulsation of Life

To Know The Dark (Wendell Berry)

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

 

Everyday Sacred

Hold Out Your Hand (Julia Fehrenbacher)
Let’s forget the world for a while
fall back and back
into the hush and holy
of now

are you listening? This breath
invites you
to write the first word
of your new story

your new story begins with this:
You matter (entire poem here)

 

Curiosity and Listening

When Beginning the Poem (Andrea Potos)

may there be a listening
rather than a making

curiosity over expectation,

lightness and ease,
no straining
toward some glut of air.

May you step aside
like a watcher at the meadow’s edge
as the doe
finds her way to the center... (entire poem here)

 

Right Here (Dane Anthony)

Stop moving. Stand in
one place – this place.
Breathe slowly; in, then out. Repeat.

Repeat again. Let your
shoulders sink and relax. Unclench
your jaw; slowly close your eyes.

Listen for your heartbeat; really
listen. Feel it pulse in
your fingertips… (entire poem here)

While these poems support each week’s class theme, reading and listening to them also draws us together in the present moment. 

Awareness Connects Us

On a Clear Day (Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

The way the field holds
   the shadow of the cottonwood,
      this is how life holds me.
 
Holds me, no matter my shape.
   Holds me with no effort.
      Holds my darkness and knows it
 
as weightless, as transient,
   as something that will shift,
      disappear, return, and shift again. (entire poem here)

 

Allowing Space

Storage (Mary Oliver)
When I moved from one house to another

there were many things I had no room for.

What does one do? I rented a storage

space. And filled it. Years passed.

Occasionally I went there and looked in,

but nothing happened, not a single

twinge of the heart. (entire poem here)

 

Loving Awareness Holds it All

For When People Ask (Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

I want a word that means
   okay and not okay,
     a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
   I want the word that says
     I feel it all all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
   singing only one note at a time… (entire poem here)

 

Beginner’s Mind

I Have this Way of Being (Jamaal May)

I have this, and this isn’t a mouth
           full of the names of odd flowers

I’ve grown in secret.
           I know none of these by name

but have this garden now,
           and pastel somethings bloom

near the others and others… (entire poem here)

 

Resilience

Birdwings (Rumi)

Awareness has no speed limit. Always now. These writings poetically support each week’s class theme. 

Try Slow

Ocean Love (Carolyn Chilton Casas)

Let me not forget to notice
all the seasons of the ocean
with an awe-filled soul—
equally winter’s pounding surf
and summer’s gentle swells. (entire poem here)

 

Cultivating Heart Qualities

Small Kindnesses (Danusha Laméris)

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. (entire poem here)

 

Self Love

The Gift to Sing (James Weldon Johnson)

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day—
      I softly sing.

And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note,
       And sing, and sing.

I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song,
       And I can sing.

 

Appreciating the Ordinary

Pigeons (Danusha Laméris)

Because they crowd the corner
of every city street,
because they are the color
of sullied steel,
because they scavenge,
eating every last crust,
we do not favor them… (entire poem here)

How stunningly beautiful to begin a new year slowly, listening, just being. These writings poetically support each week’s class theme. 

Non-Doing

The Cure for it All (Julia Fehrenbacher)

Go gently today, don’t hurry
or think about the next thing. Walk
with the quiet trees, can you believe
how brave they are—how kind? Model your life
after theirs. Blow kisses
at yourself in the mirror
especially when
you think you’ve messed up. (entire poem here)

 

Questions to Consider when Waking (Bernadette Miller)

What would you do if you really knew
that life was wanting to sing through you?

What would you say if your words could convey
prayers that the world was waiting to pray?

What would you be if your being could free
some piece of the world’s un-whispered beauty? (entire poem here)

 

Balance

The Marriage of Gold and Silver (Flur-Raven)

Do not refuse me because I’m dark and shadowed

Love me through all your doubts

Remember: there is light in every darkness

Remind me: without dark, there is no light