Thursday June 28, 2012

Because the Earth does

By: Brooke Gale  Luby

we all want to know,

“what’s wrong with the world?”
but we don’t want to hear the answer
we need newer medicine
to cope with the speed 

of our world spinning

our inner ears are off balance
because we hear but we don’t hear

so we develop vertigo
and stay in bed all day
avoiding digging ditches and answering e-mails
surrounded by our TV personalities and down pillows
our pill box always within reach
while the world waits outside

still groaning

and we know things are broken
things beyond the ache in us

so we follow the groan outside of our gated community
we stumble past strip malls  and churches
we ignore the conman’s sales pitch and
can finally hear the ocean in front of us

so we run to the water
we rub our fingers on sharp barnacles
clinging to slippery rocks
till specks of blood drips out our hands
and something in the red wakes us up
and we let the waves lick them clean
the salt waters heal

on the sand  barefoot we spin
not because the swirling colors melt the
world into something transcendent
a little like seeing
skyscrapers reflected in puddles
not because drugs run through us
or the sickness is rampant

we spin because the earth does

we crush blades of sea grass between our fingers
just to know they’re not synthetic
to know the fragility of things that grow

the fragility of us

So don’t medicate our minds
let in the pain
let it bleed
let it be destroyed

and then let it bloom

Because that’s what the earth does

Monday June 25, 2012

Let's take the long way home

By: The Beautiful Girls

So, lets say I take the long way through today. The way that is not time efficient, productive or reasonable. Lets say, I drop my logical thinking at the door step and dance with the freedom of today. 

Lets say, I abandon the way I have been taught to think. Lets say, I allow myself to ask questions and dig deeper than I have before. Lets say, I stopped playing safe and started allowing myself a life worn well. Because I deserve it. Because Im worth it. Because I'm not about to live this short life on the sidelines, watching my dreams pass me by, while passion seeps through me like wasted gold.

What a wonderfully, terrifying thought...that my dreams; my 'far fetched' thoughts of what life could be... are reachable. That I can taste them...like one can taste the saltwater in the air as they near the ocean. Or as one can smell a storm before a drop of rain even hits the pavement. So at times I might be a little reckless, a little adventurous, a little different than you. Maybe, it's because I can't get enough of the freeing feeling of my hair whipped by the wind and my skin glowing with kisses from the sun. Or maybe its because I would rather dance in the rain than watch it from the window. I would rather jump in the water and ride the waves than sit in the boat afraid of what is underneath me. 

Lets take the long way home. I like the sound of that. 

Thursday June 7, 2012
Many times writing works like a mirror. Sometimes as we witness the stories of others, we find ourselves in there pain; in there joy; in there anger or confusion. In that moment, poetry becomes more than words that we see but the words that allow us to see ourselves in perfect light.

"To the mind that is still

the whole universe surrenders"

                       Buddha     

"Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror

up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,

here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

If it were always fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding.

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as bird wings."

                           Rumi

"The Truth stands before me,

On my left is a blazing fire, and

On my right, a cool flowing stream.

One group of people walk toward the fire, into the fire,

And the other towards the cool flowing waters.

No one knows which is blessed and which is not.

But just as a just as someone enters the fire,

That head bobs up from the water,

And just as a head sinks into the water,

That face appears in the fire.

Those who love the sweet water of pleasure

And make it their devotion are cheated by this reversal.

The deception goes further-

The voice of the fire says:

“I am not fire, I am fountainhead,

Come into me and don’t mind the sparks.”

                                                              Rumi 

"Come, come whoever you are!

 Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan

 of despair.

Come,

come even if you have

broken your vows

 a thousand times.

Come,

 come yet again,

come!"

                                                                Inscribed at the tomb of Jelaluddin Rumi

“You can hold back from

 suffering of the world,

 you have permission to do so,

 and it is in accordance

 with your nature,

 but perhaps this very holding back

is the one suffering

 you could have avoided"

                                                                Franz Kafka

Love After Love

"The time will come, when with elation,

 you will greet yourself arriving

 at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other's welcome

and say, sit here.  Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

 Give wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you.

all your life, whom you have ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

 peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your life."

                                                                                      Dereck Walcott

The Journey

"One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,

 though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,

 though the whole house began to tremble

and you felt the old tug at your ankles.

"Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,

though their melancholy was terrible.

 It was already late enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen branches and stones.

 But little by little, as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,

 and there was a new voice

which you slowly recognized as your own,

 that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do,

determined to save the only life you could save. "

                                                Mary Oliver