Sacred Season

I was reading a bedside book which a friend gave me,(Earth Prayers, from around the world) this morning and came across a poem which has an essence of what I was trying to say with the previous blog. So I thought I would share it.
.......

O sacred season of Autumn, be my teacher
for I wish to learn the virtue of contentment
As I gaze upon your full-colored beauty,
I sense all about you
an at-homeness with your amber riches.

You are the season of retirement,
of full barns and harvested fields.
The cycle of growth has ceased,
and the busy work of giving life
is now completed
I sense in you no regrets:
you’ve lived a full life.

I live in a society that is ever-restless,
always eager for more mountains to climb,
seeking happiness through more and more possessions.
As a child of my culture,
I am seldom truly at peace with what I have.
Teach me to take stock of what I have given and received;
may I know that it’s enough,
that my striving can cease
in the abundance of God’s grace.
May I know the contentment
that allows the totality of my energies
to come full flower.
May I know that like you I am rich beyond measure.


As you, O Autumn, take pleasure in your great bounty,
let me also take delight
in the abundance of the simple things in life
which are the true source of joy.
With the golden glow of peaceful contentment
may I truly appreciate this autumn day

~Edward Hays

Silence

When I was at college, there was someone in the year above me who wrote poems. Many of his poems still toss around in my head. I have no idea if he ever published them, or even what his full name was, but I thought I would share one with you.

Silence

A thousand stuttering words
Could never match
The eloquence
of a silence
and the library of context
in which it is heard

.

Vulture . by Robinson Jeffers

I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling
high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit
narrowing,
I understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-
feathers
Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.
I could see the naked red head between the great wings
Bear downward staring. I said, 'My dear bird, we are wasting time
here.
These old bones will still work; they are not for you.' But how
beautiful
he looked, gliding down
On those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering away in the
sea-light
over the precipice. I tell you solemnly
That I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak
and
become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes--
What a sublime end of one's body, what an enskyment; what a life
after death.

A poem

I found this on anothers blog and thought I would share it.

Anam Cara by Ulrike Gerbig

The sun
Bears you

The wind
Knows you

The rain
Cries you

Water
Holds you

Night
Sends you

Day
Claims you

Valleys
Hills Meadows
Woods Brooks Rivers
Ponds Lakes
Desert
Sea

Pass by

In my heart’s many folds
I carry your image

I feed on your love

Inside
And out

My search for you
Is endless

Your call made me
A pilgrim

I follow
Your song




*in Gaelic Anam is soul and Cara is friend

January 2007

a poem for the new year

Damaged
There's not a single tree in the wood
that isn't damaged.
Yet they grow tall and old
and when at last they fall they are noticed
not by their malformations
but by their absence, sudden blue
astonishments of sky.

Being is its own achieving.
The fabric of things
mends in spans accomplished and the joy
of particular wounds. Do not ask to be cured
nor pass your parcel of injuries
to others. You were damaged, let yourself
be changed and grow and live.

BY DONALD ADAMSON: