Poems and Quotes

A Few Poems and Quotes.....

Summons
By Robert Francis

Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep to soon
Come wake me up.

Come any hourOf night.
Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch.
Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.

Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look.
Or tell me the clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before,
and show me.
See that I see.

Talk to me tillI’m half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering whyI ever went to bed at all.

Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I’m not to hard to be persuaded.


...... from the eighth letter, "Letters to a Youg Poet"
Rilke

You must not be frightened when a sadness arises within you of such magnitude as you have never experienced, or when a restlesness overshadows all you do, like light and the shadow of clouds gliding over your hand. You must believe that something is happening to you, that life has not fogotten you, that it holds you in it's hand. It shall not let you fall.

ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
William Wordsworth

(the last section, which is often read by itself)

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not,
rather find Strength
in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born DayIs lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been,
and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

The Search for Meaning

When all else has failed, Even my prayers,
Or it seems that they have, and I weep in solitude;
When all reason eludes the grasp of my mind,
And my thoughts spiral in paths that ramble,
And I am feeling lost inside myself ~
I turn to the memories of smiling friends
To anchor me to the life that I’m living.

I turn to the memories of hands clasping hands,
Of warm embraces, of shared summer skies,
I remember meeting a loved ones eyes,
And I feel alive, I remember feeling alive,
And am brought back to my senses ~
My awareness of our being connected ,
Ours a shared world, no matter the distances.

Perhaps we are blessed, those who Tragedy visits;
Although the understanding makes the stomach ill,
And our frail hearts cannot bear to welcome Her.
An awkward gratefulness surrounds gifts that follow
~But what other Muse could move the heart so well?
Who else could inspire charity, compassion, acceptance-
The understanding that whatever answers can be found ,
Will be found in the eyes and arms and hearts of friends.

~ Nikki Stevens (written a bazillion years ago )