The Summer Day

Who made the world?

   Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean the one who is

   eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth

   instead of up and down -

who is gazing around with her

   enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms

   and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

   I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall into the grass,

    how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed,

how to stroll through the fields,

   which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

   Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

   with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver.

Mary Oliver (born September 10, 1935) is an American poet who has won multiple awards, including the National Book Award with her New and Selected Poems (1992), and the Pulitzer Prize with her American Primitive (1984).

The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's [America's] best-selling poet", and she has also been compared to Emily Dickinson, because of her preference for solitude and interior monologues. She is a true feminist that celebrates the feminine side of life and our affinity with nature.

In her now famous poem, “When Death Comes”, in New and Selected Poems (1992), she declared:

“When it’s over, I want to say:

All my life, I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”

   

Everyday Life is the Path

In spring, hundreds of flowers bloom,

In autumn, a harvest moon shines,

In the summer, a refreshing breeze blows,

In winter snow will accompany you.

If trivial things do not linger in your mind,

Every season is the best season of your life.

-     Wu-Men Hui-Kai

Wu-Men Hui-Kai (1183-1260), also known as Mumon Ekai in Japanese, was the Chief Monk of Long-Xiang monastery in China during the Song Dynasty. He was a classical eccentric Chan (Zen) master who wandered from temple to temple, wearing shabby old robes, with long hair and beards until he founded a temple at the age of 64. Wu-Men is esteemed by later generations for the writing the Mumonkan.

The Mumonkan or “The Gateless Gate” is a compilation and commentary of 48 koans, first published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and poetic verse written by Wumen. The poem above is the poetic verse of the koan called “Everyday Life is the Path” in Mumonkan.

To read the full work of the Mumonkan, visit the Sacred Text website.

   

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903) was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus".

At the age of 12, Henley fell victim to tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later, the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. It was amputated when he was 25. In 1875, he wrote the "Invictus" poem from a hospital bed. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until his death at the age of 53.

More of the poet's work can be found at http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/henley/henley_ind.html

   

Do not stand at my grave and weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.
- Mary Elizabeth Frye

This beautiful poem was written one day in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905 - 2004), a housewife and florist,  on a brown paper shopping bag. 


It was believed that Frye had never written any poems, but she was inspired by a young German Jewish woman, Margaret Schwarzkopf, who was staying with her and her husband. Margaret had been concerned about her mother, who was ill in Germany, but she had been warned not to return home because of increasing anti-semitic unrest. When her mother died, the heartbroken young woman told Frye that she never had the chance to “stand by my mother’s grave and shed a tear”. These words led to the birth of this famous poem, which has been recited at funerals and on other appropriate occasions around the world for seventy years.
   

Nothing lasts forever

Nothing lasts forever;
No one lives forever.
Keep that in mind, and love.

Our life is not the same old burden;
Our path is not the same long journey.
The flower fades and dies,
We must pause to weave perfection into music
Keep that in mind, and love.

My beloved, in you I find refuge.

Love droops towards its sunset
To be drowned in the golden shadows.
Love must be called from its play
And love must be born again to be free
Keep that in mind, and love.

My beloved, in you I find refuge
Without seeing my love, I cannot sleep

Let us hurry to gather our flowers
Before they are plundered by the passing winds.
It quickens our blood and brightens our eyes
To snatch kisses that would vanish
If we delayed.

Our life is eager;
Our desires are keen,
For time rolls by
Keep that in mind, and love.

My beloved, in you I find refuge

Beauty is sweet for a short time,
And then it is gone.
Knowledge is precious
But we will never have time to complete it.
All is done and finished
In eternal heaven,
But our life here is eternally fresh.
Keep that in mind, and love.
— Rabindranath Tagore.*

*Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941) was a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music. In 1913, Tagore became the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His poetry in translation was viewed as spiritual, and this together with his mesmerizing persona gave him a prophet-like aura in the west but his "elegant prose and magical poetry" still remains largely unknown outside the confines of Bengal.

His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to political and personal topics. Gitanjali (Songs Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and contemplation.

A good collection of his poems can be read at: http://www.poemhunter.com/rabindranath-tagore 

   

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 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.
— Derek Walcott*

The Hon. Derek Alton Walcott, born in 1930, is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. At the age of 18, he made his debut with 25 Poems, but his breakthrough came with the collection of poems, In a Green Night (1962). His later collections include Tiepolo’s Hound (2000), The Prodigal (2004) and White Egrets (2010), which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

  

Both his grandmothers were said to have been the descendants of slaves. His father was a Bohemian watercolourist who died when Derek and his twin brother, Roderick, were only a few years old. The experience of growing up on the isolated volcanic island, an ex-British colony, has had a strong influence on Walcott's life and work.

To read more about the poet and his work, visit PWF: Derek Walcott 

   

Find strength in what remains behind

“What though the radiance which was once so bright 

be now forever taken from my sight. 

Though nothing can bring back the hour 

of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. 

We will grieve not, rather 

find strength in what remains behind.”

— William Wordsworth from Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollection of Early Childhood.* 

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads. The Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, also known as The Great Ode is published in 1807 and is generally considered to be Wordsworth's greatest work. 

To read the full work, visit  The Great Ode at http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww331.html 


    

This moment is your life.

"Drink wine. 
This is life eternal. 
This is all that youth will give you. 
It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. 
Be happy for this moment. 
This moment is your life." 
— Omar Khayyám from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.*

*The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and many of which are attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048–1131), a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer.


To read more about the poet and his work, visit http://omar-khayyam.org/