Kahlil Gibran: "On Pain"

And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
       your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
       heart may stand in the sun, so must you know
       pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily
       miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
       less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
       even as you have always accepted the seasons
       that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the
       winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen,
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
       you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
       in silence and tranquility:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
       the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
       been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
       moistened with His own sacred tears.

"On Pain" by Kahlil Gibran. Text as published in The Prophet: A New Annotated Edition (Oneworld Publications, 2012). Introduced and annotated by Suheil Bushrui.

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Caroline Johnson: "Hauling Water"

I’m not a swimmer, but
I’ve swum for 20 years
and in the water I find
a pool of prayer and sunlight,
a lap of Buddha without numbers,
a dedication to peace,
a moment of maturation,
meditation,
signing to the deaf with
free-style kick,
sliding through to numbers
on a journey of void.

Emptiness can fill you
like the hollow hive of a bee.
Joy is not a lazy pot of honey
but a process of
strength, courage
and focusing on
the inner path.
Leaves swirl in the ripples,
are rolled away,
now.


 
"Hauling Water" by Caroline Johnson. Text as published in Buddhist Poetry Review (June 2013). © Caroline Johnson. Presented here by poet submission.

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

David Budbill: "This Morning"

Oh, this life,
the now,
this morning,

which I
can turn
into forever

by simply
loving
what is here,

is gone
by noon.

"This Morning" by David Budbill. Text as published in Happy Life (Copper Canyon Press, 2011).

Art credit: Untitled photograph of a snail looking at its reflection in a bubble in Berdichev, Ukraine, by Vyacheslav Mischenko/Caters News.

Teddy Macker: "Prayer"

dear lord in this time of darkness

help us see the darkness

dear lord help us to not pretend

no more pretending

dear lord may our gaze be defenseless

and unshardable

teach us the piety of the open eye

dear lord in this time of darkness

may we be unafraid to mourn and together and hugely

may dignity lose its scaffolding

faces crumble like bricks

dear lord let grief come to grief

and then o lord help us to see the bees yet in the lavender

the spokes of sunlight down through the oaks

and the sleep-opened face of the beloved

and the afternoon all around her

and her small freckled hands  

“Prayer” by Teddy Macker. Text as published in This World (White Cloud Press, 2015). © Teddy Macker. Reprinted by permission of the poet.  

Art credit: Untitled image from an unknown photographer in this news story about Thursday's mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon (USA).

Curator's note: All my thanks to the poet Teddy Macker for helping me prepare this post late last night, my time. I had another poem scheduled for today, but then I got word of the horrific shooting at Umpqua Community College. A different poem was needed. I emailed Teddy (a wonderful poet I've never met) in the off-chance I might get his permission to use his poem at the last minute. As it happened, he was just then reading online about the tragedy. At once he graciously agreed.

This project concerns poetry, not politics. But it also concerns mindfulness, which is as much about others as about the self. So allow me to say that President Obama is right: We need to offer everyone affected by this violence our thoughts and prayers, but our thoughts and prayers aren't enough.

We must mourn, but as Teddy says, we must also see "with the piety of the open eye." Let us vow: "No more pretending." For the sake of the beloved, let us demand action to address the underlying causes of these shootings.

Patricia Monaghan: "Things to Believe In"

trees, in general; oaks, especially;
burr oaks that survive fire, in particular;
and the generosity of apples

seeds, all of them: carrots like dust,
winged maple, doubled beet, peach kernel;
the inevitability of change

frogsong in spring; cattle
lowing on the farm across the hill;
the melodies of sad old songs

comfort of savory soup;
sweet iced fruit; the aroma of yeast;
a friend's voice; hard work

seasons; bedrock; lilacs;
moonshadows under the ash grove;
something breaking through

"Things to Believe In" by Patricia Monaghan. Text as published in Grace of Ancient Land (Voices from the American Land, 2011).

Art credit: "Fog highlights a burst of moonbeams through the leaves of a black ash tree," photograph by Bob King/Duluth News Tribune.

Jack Ridl: "The Neighbors"

Sometimes they
go outside, maybe

move a rosebush
to the back yard or

clean a window.
Usually they

simply stand,
under a maple

or in a snowfall.
And this is often

when they see
a nuthatch on its

dizzy route down
a trunk, or

the quick flick
of a chickadee

across the yard
and onto a branch.

They don't do
much. That's for

others. They know
how to take things

for granted, know
what to miss.

Every morning
they make breakfast.

And when the sun
sets, they let it go.

"The Neighbors" by Jack Ridl. Text as published in Practicing to Walk Like a Heron (Wayne State University Press, 2013). © Wayne State University Press. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

David Ray: "Doing Without"

            ’s an interesting

custom, involving such in-

            visible items as the food

that’s not on the table, the clothes

            that are not on the back

the radio whose only music

            is silence. Doing without

is a great protector of reputations

            since all places one cannot go

are fabulous, and only the rare and

            enlightened plowman in his field

or on his mountain does not overrate

            what he does not or cannot have.

Saluting through their windows

            of cathedral glass those restaurants

we must not enter (unless like

            burglars we become subject to

arrest) we greet with our twinkling

            eyes the faces of others who do

without, the lady with the

            fishing pole and the man who looks

amused to have discovered on a walk

            another piece of firewood.

"Doing Without" by David Ray. Text as published in Gathering Firewood: New Poems and Selected (Wesleyan Press, 1974). © David Ray. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Curator's note: This poem is half of a diptych. Its companion is entitled "Having Too Much," which you can read here.

Art credit: "Old Woman Fishing Alone," photograph by Steve Duffey.

John Fuller: "Calling"

There, don't you hear it too?

Something is calling, although

The day is blank and gray.

The eye fastened on nothing,

The ear undistracted

And we with nothing to say.

But still that sense of calling,

Of something seeking attention

Beyond our consciousness.

That voice in voiceless things

When they cease to be themselves,

Losing their choice and purpose.

Joining the indiscriminate

Otherness which surrounds us

At our own times of withdrawal.

It is then that the world calls us

As if to reinterpret

Or to reconfigure.

Whose is this voice? A god's?

Surely not. It seems

To be the voice of duty

That speaks of origins

And of relationships

Between things grown apart.

And I remember the muezzin

Singing every morning

Raptly, as if for himself.

Singing in the dark hour

At a distance, over all,

And yet outside our door.

His practised lilt spoke more

Of the puzzles of night than of

The determinations of morning.

As though the light had still

To be charmed into being

And each day a reward.

The voice is much like his,

A commanding meditation

Rising from the blankness.

Of a sleeping senselessness,

Thoughtful, improbable,

But stirring us to beauty.

And like his, the voice

Links us for a while

In its reiterations

Then ends abruptly, as if

Distracted by something else

Of no great importance.

"Calling" by John Fuller. Text as published in Ghosts (Random House UK, 2004).

Art credit: "The Adhan: The Muslim Call to Prayer," video published on 07/09/2013 by interestmedia.

Gary Snyder: "For All"

Ah to be alive
              on a mid-September morn
              fording a stream
              barefoot, pants rolled up,
              holding boots, pack on,
              sunshine, ice in the shallows,
              northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
             cold nose dripping
             singing inside
             creek music, heart music,
             smell of sun on gravel.

             I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil
             of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
             one ecosystem
             in diversity
             under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.



"For All" by Gary Snyder. Text as published in The Gary Snyder Reader: Prose, Poetry and Translations, 1952-1998 (Volume I, Counterpoint, 1999).  

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Ron Stone: "Attention"

 



















“Well... ...That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.”

—Aldous Huxley, Island

If this were the last time we met in this world
what would I wish I had said      or done?
I know death is always somewhere in the neighborhood
for someone as old as I,
just as I know, no matter how much I might beg,
God would never forbid you might die.

There is no perfect word to speak,
no perfect deed to perform.
When after today I have left or am left,
if I am never to see you again,
then I just want to be fully here     now,
to be fully awake while we may.

There will be time for sleep after today.



"Attention" by Ron Stone. © Ron Stone. Text presented here by poet submission.  

Art credit: "Sunset Stroll," photograph by Lynne Lancaster.

Danna Faulds: "Allow"

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream, and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in—
the wild with the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.



"Allow" by Danna Faulds. Text as published in Go In and In: Poems from the Heart of Yoga (Peaceable Kingdom Books, 2002). 

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Wendell Berry: "The Want of Peace"

All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman's silence
receiving the river's grace,
the gardner's musing on rows.

I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.



"The Want of Peace" by Wendell Berry. Text as published in New Collected Poems (Counterpoint Press, 2012).

Curator's note: The word "gardner's" in the last line of the first stanza is as spelled in the text.

Art credit: "Fly fishing," photograph taken in Yellowstone National Park [USA] by Ranch Seeker.

 

Freya Manfred: "To My Son, Laughing in His Sleep"

Since he was a baby
I have awakened in the night
startled
by the bell-sweet sound
of his laugh.
I am propelled,
cold, knees creaking,
across the cluttered floor
to his bed,
my face above his face:
yes, he is asleep,
and smiling.

Back in my bed I hear again
his high warble.
How I envy this boy
who is not mine,
who was never mine.
How I praise him
for making everything in the world right
for one moment.



"To My Son, Laughing in His Sleep" by Freya Manfred. Text as published in My Only Home (Red Dragonfly Press). © 2003 by Freya Manfred. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Curator's note: The poet also encourages you to browse the artwork of her sons at this link.

Art credit: Photograph of "Baby G" by April Newman Photography.

C. K. Williams: "Clay Out of Silence"

 

in tribute
C. K. Williams
(1936 - 2015)












chances are we will sink quietly back
into oblivion without a ripple
we will go back into the face
down through the mortars as though it hadn’t happened

earth: I’ll remember you
you were the mother you made pain
I’ll grind my thorax against you for the last time
and put my hand on you again to comfort you

sky: could we forget?
we were the same as you were
we couldn’t wait to get back sleeping
we’d have done anything to be sleeping

and trees angels for being thrust up here
and stones for cracking in my bare hands
because you foreknew
there was no vengeance for being here

when we were flesh we were eaten
when we were metal we were burned back
there was no death anywhere but now
when we were men when we became it

 

"Clay Out of Silence" by C. K. Williams. Text as published in Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014). Hear the poet read this poem here.

Curator's note: We mark the passing of another mindfulness poet. The award-winning C. K. Williams, whose writing expressed strong social conscience, died September 20th at the age of 78 from multiple myeloma. In an interview with PBS Newhour in 2000, Williams described the writing process as "a kind of fusion of will and submission and inspiration that’s quite marvelous, where something sometimes will—at its very best—seem to be happening through you and to you, rather than you making it happen."

Art credit: Portrait of C. K. Williams by Oliver Morris.

 

Peter Pereira: "A Pot of Red Lentils"

simmers on the kitchen stove.
All afternoon dense kernels
surrender to the fertile
juices, their tender bellies
swelling with delight.

In the yard we plant
rhubarb, cauliflower, and artichokes,
cupping wet earth over tubers,
our labor the germ
of later sustenance and renewal.

Across the field the sound of a baby crying
as we carry in the last carrots,
whorls of butter lettuce,
a basket of red potatoes.

I want to remember us this way—
late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden
bunches of grapes on the table,
spoonfuls of hot soup rising
to our lips, filling us
with what endures.

"A Pot of Red Lentils" by Peter Pereira. Text as published in Saying the World (Copper Canyon Press, 2003). 

Art credit: Photograph of a bowl of butternut and red lentil soup, by unknown photographer. Find the recipe at Nadia, The Good Food Cook.

Amy Lowell: "September, 1918"

This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight;
The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;
The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,
And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.
Under a tree in the park,
Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,
Were carefully gathering red berries
To put in a pasteboard box.
Some day there will be no war,
Then I shall take out this afternoon
And turn it in my fingers,
And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,
And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.
To-day I can only gather it
And put it into my lunch-box,
For I have time for nothing
But the endeavour to balance myself
Upon a broken world.

"September, 1918" by Amy Lowell, from The Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950). Text as posted at The Poetry Foundation.

Curator's note: September, 1918, was a time of major Allied offensives during World War I.

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Franco Pagnucci: "All Day"

Great sweeps of wind,

were settling the cold in.

Chickadees twittered

from the hollows of the spruce

and stayed put.

The bald eagle came down

into a low pine

below the northwest hill

out of the wind.

In late afternoon

an orange horizon,

and a clear night. Stars.

I loved the feel in the west

of days getting longer.

"All Day" by Franco Pagnucci. Text as published in Tracks on Damp Sand (North Star Press, 2014). © Franco Pagnucci. Presented here by poet submission.

Art credit: "A bald eagle, Haliaeetus Leucocephalus, swoops in to land on a tree branch in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming [USA]," photograph by Randall K. Roberts. © 2011 Randall K. Roberts.

Anna Swir: "I Talk to My Body"

My body, you are an animal

whose appropriate behavior

is concentration and discipline.

An effort

of an athlete, of a saint and of a yogi.

Well trained,

you may become for me

a gate

through which I will leave myself

and a gate

through which I will enter myself.

A plumb line to the center of the earth

and a cosmic ship to Jupiter.

My body, you are an animal

for whom ambition

is right.

Splendid possibilities

are open to us.

"I Talk to My Body" by Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska), from A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz (Mariner Books edition, 1998). Poem translated from the original Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan.  

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.
 

Martha Sprackland: "Refugees"

I sit on my coat
and think about home:
the warm cosy glow of the fire,
the smell of home baked bread…
I brush tears to the grass.
A small child wanders over,
sits down with a bump.
I glance at him,
and he gazes at me intently.
A sharp, blue gaze,
I offer him a piece of bread
and he takes it. A flicker of a smile.
I put my arm around his skinny shoulders.
Silently, together, we sit, and think, and cry.


 

"Refugees" by Martha Sprackland. Text as published on the website of The Poetry Society (UK) (1999). © Martha Sprackland. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Curator's note: Unable to sleep, I prepared this post in the middle of the night. Surely there is something more each of us can do, right where we are, to respond with kindness and courage during this massive outpouring of refugees from war-torn Syria. (And they, of course, aren't the only refugees in the world who are suffering....)

Art credit: "A Syrian refugee boy eats bread in the Western Bekaa village of Jub Jennin [Lebanon]," photograph by Niamh Fleming-Farrell /The Daily Star(03/14/2013). 

Jane Hirshfield: "A Day Comes"

A day comes
when the mouth grows tired
of saying “I.”

Yet it is occupied
still by a self which must speak.
Which still desires, is curious.
Which believes it has also a right.

What to do?

The tongue consults with the teeth
it knows will survive
both mouth and self,

which grin—it is their natural pose—
and say nothing.

"A Day Comes" by Jane Hirshfield. Text as published in After: Poems (HarperCollins, 2006).  

Art credit: "Joyful Buddha II," image by Nine Dragons Photography.