In these first breaths of the New Year, we know we are here. These poems help enliven our weekly class explorations of being fully awake for all our life moments.
Living (Senali Perera)
When you feel storms brewing inside you
you breathe.
When your heart turns to stone inside your chest
you breathe.
When unknowing souls cut you open
you breathe.
When they look away from the love you bleed out
you breathe.
When you find yourself choking on daydreams
you breathe.
When your insides burn from their absence
you breathe.
When they tear you apart just for fun
you breathe.
When you feel poems sprout inside your veins from the teardrops you cry
you breathe.
When it all goes silent and you're lost in your own company
you breathe.
You breathe,
you breathe,
and you breathe.
You breathe till your heart lightens
You breathe till your bruises fade
You breathe till you're awake from the reverie
You breathe till the hurricane is tame
You breathe till you find a friend in yourself
You breathe till the aches are all washed away
You breathe for the night to be gentle
You breathe till the golden dawn breaks.
Enough (David Whyte)
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.
Saint Francis and the Sow (Galway Kinnell)
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.
A Tree Knows How
(Lea Seigen Shinraku)
I think I am air.
I think I am dirt.
When I am both.
When I am neither —
like a tree.
Only,
a tree knows how
to be solid trunk and
strong, flexible limbs.
To silently speak,
with thousands of tongues,
that reach for both sunlight and rain.
To be fed by roots
that thread between rocks
and find their place in the earth.
To grow in two directions at once.
To touch clouds
without floating in them.
To be grounded, not buried.
To never know what a tree is.
To simply be one.
In these first breaths of the New Year, we know we are here. These poems help enliven our weekly class explorations of being fully awake for all our life moments.
Living (Senali Perera)
When you feel storms brewing inside you
you breathe.
When your heart turns to stone inside your chest
you breathe.
When unknowing souls cut you open
you breathe.
When they look away from the love you bleed out
you breathe.
When you find yourself choking on daydreams
you breathe.
When your insides burn from their absence
you breathe.
When they tear you apart just for fun
you breathe.
When you feel poems sprout inside your veins from the teardrops you cry
you breathe.
When it all goes silent and you're lost in your own company
you breathe.
You breathe,
you breathe,
and you breathe.
You breathe till your heart lightens
You breathe till your bruises fade
You breathe till you're awake from the reverie
You breathe till the hurricane is tame
You breathe till you find a friend in yourself
You breathe till the aches are all washed away
You breathe for the night to be gentle
You breathe till the golden dawn breaks.
Enough (David Whyte)
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.
Saint Francis and the Sow (Galway Kinnell)
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.
A Tree Knows How
(Lea Seigen Shinraku)
I think I am air.
I think I am dirt.
When I am both.
When I am neither —
like a tree.
Only,
a tree knows how
to be solid trunk and
strong, flexible limbs.
To silently speak,
with thousands of tongues,
that reach for both sunlight and rain.
To be fed by roots
that thread between rocks
and find their place in the earth.
To grow in two directions at once.
To touch clouds
without floating in them.
To be grounded, not buried.
To never know what a tree is.
To simply be one.
In these first breaths of the New Year, we know we are here. These poems help enliven our weekly class explorations of being fully awake for all our life moments.
Living (Senali Perera)
When you feel storms brewing inside you
you breathe.
When your heart turns to stone inside your chest
you breathe.
When unknowing souls cut you open
you breathe.
When they look away from the love you bleed out
you breathe.
When you find yourself choking on daydreams
you breathe.
When your insides burn from their absence
you breathe.
When they tear you apart just for fun
you breathe.
When you feel poems sprout inside your veins from the teardrops you cry
you breathe.
When it all goes silent and you're lost in your own company
you breathe.
You breathe,
you breathe,
and you breathe.
You breathe till your heart lightens
You breathe till your bruises fade
You breathe till you're awake from the reverie
You breathe till the hurricane is tame
You breathe till you find a friend in yourself
You breathe till the aches are all washed away
You breathe for the night to be gentle
You breathe till the golden dawn breaks.
Enough (David Whyte)
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.
Saint Francis and the Sow (Galway Kinnell)
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.
A Tree Knows How
(Lea Seigen Shinraku)
I think I am air.
I think I am dirt.
When I am both.
When I am neither —
like a tree.
Only,
a tree knows how
to be solid trunk and
strong, flexible limbs.
To silently speak,
with thousands of tongues,
that reach for both sunlight and rain.
To be fed by roots
that thread between rocks
and find their place in the earth.
To grow in two directions at once.
To touch clouds
without floating in them.
To be grounded, not buried.
To never know what a tree is.
To simply be one.
