#poem

Then a hundred sad voices lifted a wail, And a hundred glad voices piped on the gale: 'Time is short, life is short,' they took up the tale: 'Life is sweet, love is sweet, use to-day while you may; Love is sweet, and to-morrow may fail; Love is sweet, use to-day. ↗

— Christina Rossetti

#love #poem #time #life

Answers I kept my answers small and kept them near; Big questions bruised my mind but still I let Small answers be a bullwark to my fear. The huge abstractions I kept from the light; Small things I handled and caressed and loved. I let the stars assume the whole of night. But the big answers clamoured to be moved Into my life. Their great audacity Shouted to be acknowledged and believed. Even when all small answers build up to Protection of my spirit, still I hear Big answers striving for their overthrow. And all the great conclusions coming near ↗

— Edith Sitwell

#poem #life

Wedding Hymn Father, within Thy House today We wait Thy kindly love to see; Since thou hast said in truth that they Who dwell in love are one with Thee, Bless those who for Thy blessing wait, Their love accept and consecrate. Dear Lord of love, whose Heart of Fire, So full of pity for our sin, Was once in that Divine Desire Broken, Thy Bride to woo and win: Look down and bless them form above And keep their hearts alight with love. Blest Spirit, who with life and light Didst quicken chaos to Thy praise, Whose energy, in sin's despite, Still lifts our nature up to grace; Bless those who here in troth consent. Creator, crown Thy Sacrament. Great One in Three, of Whom are named All families in earth and heaven, Hear us, who have Thy promise claimed, And let a wealth of grace be given; Grant them in life and death to be Each knit to each, and both to Thee. ↗

— Robert Hugh Benson

#poems #wedding #death

The world's an incessant transformation, and to meditate is awareness, with no clinging to, no working on, the mind. It is a floating; ever-moving; 'marvellous emptiness'. Only absorption in such a practice will release us from the accidents, and appetites, of life. And upon this leaf one shall cross over the stormy sea, among the dragon-like waves. ↗

— Robert Gray

#poem #life

Yesterday I fell completely off the face of the earth Contemplating life, light and love in the darkness of the void Strangely it was in the dark that I found meaning for the light ↗

— Neil Leckman

#poems #life

[...] the body is what we lean toward, tensing as it darts, dancing away. but it's the voice that enters us. even saying nothing. even saying nothing over and over absently to itself ↗

— Tracy K. Smith

#soul #life

from time to time, i think of him watching me from over the top of his glasses, or eating candy from a jar. i remember thanking him each time the session was done. but mostly what i see is a human hand reaching down to lift a pebble from my tongue ↗

— Tracy K. Smith

#life

He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him In ! From the poem " Outwitted ↗

— Edwin Markham

#heretic #love #poem #rebel #wit

تصوَّر أنني أُحبُّك - والله أُحبُّك - بهذا الشكل العفوي وأنا أشقُّ برتقالةً نصفَينِ... أتذكّرك وأنا أعبر الشارع نحو الرصيف المقابل... أتذكّرك وأنا أضع طلاء أظافري الأحمر البرّاق... أتذكّرك وأنا أُمرِّر يدي فوق رؤوس الأطفال... أتذكّرك وأنا أقف أمام البحر الهائل الزُّرقة... أتذكّرك وأنا أختار أثاث البيت... أتذكّرك وأنا أُغلِّف هدايا العيد... أتذكّرك وأنا أستيقظ صباحاً... أتذكّرك إييييه يا صديقي؛ البنت المُتوجِّسة خيفةً من زمن سيء؛ تُحبُّكَ الآن . ↗

— Nour Albawardi

#حب #love

In Blackwater Woods Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. ↗

— Mary Oliver

#poetry #life