Spiritual Poems

7/31/2019 Spiritual Poems

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Poems


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Mary Oliver


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The Journey

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,

though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice--though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save.


4/25

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds.I slept as never before, a stone on theriver bed,nothing between me and the white fire ofthe starsbut my thoughts, and they floated light asmothsamong the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdomsbreathing around me, the insects,and the birds who do their work in thedarkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,grappling with a luminous doom. BymorningI had vanished at least a dozen timesinto something better.


5/25

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desertrepenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell youmine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of therain

are moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blueair,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and

excitingover and over announcing your placein the family of things.


6/25

Poem (the spirit likes to dress up)

The spiritlikes to dress up like this:

ten fingers,ten toes,

shoulders, and all the restat nightin the black branches,in the morning

in the blue branches

of the world.It could float, of course,but would rather

plumb rough matter.Airy and shapeless thing,it needsthe metaphor of the

body,

lime and appetite,the oceanic fluids;

it needs the body'sworld,

instinct

and imaginationand the dark hug of time,sweetnessand tangibility,

to be understood,to be more than pure light

that burnswhere no one is --

so it enters us --in the morningshines from brute comfortlike a stitch of lightning;

and at night

lights up the deep andwondrousdrownings of the bodylike a star.


7/25

Morning Poem

Every morning

the worldis created.Under the orange

sticks of the sunthe heapedashes of the nightturn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the highbranches ---and the ponds appearlike black clothon which are painted islands

of summer lilies.If it is your natureto be happy

you will swim away along the softtrails

for hours, your imaginationalighting everywhere.And if your spiritcarries within it

the thorn

that is heavier than lead ---if it's all you can doto keep on trudging ---


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there is stillsomewhere deep within youa beast shouting that the earthis exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing liliesis a prayer heard and answeredlavishly,every morning,

whether or notyou have ever dared to be happy,whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.


9/25

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the blackriver?

Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silveryair -An armful of white blossoms,A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leanedinto the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank oflilies,Biting the air with its black beak?Did you hear it, fluting and whistlingA shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees -

like a waterfallKnifing down the black ledges?And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feetLike black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light ofthe river?

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained toeverything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is

for?And have you changed your life?


10/25

Bone

1.

Understand, I am always trying to figure outwhat the soul is,and where hidden,and what shapeand so, last week,when I found on the beachthe ear boneof a pilot whale that may have diedhundreds of years ago, I thought

maybe I was closeto discovering somethingfor the ear bone

2.

is the portion that lasts longestin any of us, man or whale; shapedlike a squat spoon

with a pink scoop whereonce, in the lively swimmer's head,it joined its two sistersin the house of hearing,it was onlytwo inches longand thought: the soulmight be like thisso hard, so necessary

3.

yet almost nothing.Beside methe gray seawas opening and shutting its wave-doors,unfolding over and overits time-ridiculing roar;I looked but I couldn't see anythingthrough its dark-knit glare;


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yet don't we all know, the golden sandis there at the bottom,though our eyes have never seen it,nor can our hands ever catch it

4.

lest we would sift it downinto fractions, and factscertaintiesand what the soul is, alsoI believe I will never quite know.

Though I play at the edges of knowing,

truly I knowour part is not knowing,but looking, and touching, and loving,which is the way I walked on,softly,through the pale-pink morning light.


12/25

Song of the Builders

On a summer morningI sat down

on a hillsideto think about God -

a worthy pastime.Near me, I sawa single cricket;it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.

How great was its energy,how humble its effort.Let us hope

it will always be like this,each of us going onin our inexplicable waysbuilding the universe.


13/25

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where DoesIt End?

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not

it.It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the whitefeet of the treeswhose mouths open.Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the

dance?Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia,then Europe,until at last, now, they shinein your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even aneducation.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he lookingoutward, to the mountains so solidly therein a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg,the ideathat was also there,beautiful as a thumbcurved and touching the finger, tenderly,little love-ring,

as he whirled,oh jug of breath,in the garden of dust?


14/25

Wendell Berry


15/25

The Law That Marries All Things

The cloud is free onlyto go with the wind.

The rain is freeonly in falling.

The water is free onlyin its gathering together,

in its downward courses,in its rising into the air.

In law is restif you love the law,if you enter singing into itas water in its descent.


16/25

Kabir


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Dohas (Couplets) I

Looking at the grinding stones, Kabir lamentsIn the duel of wheels, nothing stays intact.

searching for the wicked, met not a single oneWhen searched myself, I found the wisked one

Tomorrows work do today, todays work anonIf the moment is lost, when will the work be done

Speak such words sans egos ployBody remains composed, giving the listener joy

Slowly slowly O mind, everything in own pace happensGardner may water a hundred buckets, fruit arrives

only in its season

Give so much O God, suffice to envelop my clanI should not suffer cravings, nor the visitor gos unfed

In vain in the eminence, just like a date treeNo shade for travelers, frui tis hard to reach

Like seed contains the oil, fire in flint stoneYour heart sits the Divine, realize if you can

Kabir in the market place, wishes welfare of allNeither friendship nor enmity with anyone at all

Reading books everyone died, none became any wiseOne who reads the words of Love, only becomes wise

In anguish everyone prays to Him, in joy does noneTo one who prays in happiness, how sorrow can come


18/25

I Said To The Wanting-Creature Inside Me

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:What is this river you want to cross?

There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or nesting?

There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!

And there is no body, and no mind!Do you believe there is some place that will make thesoul

less thirsty?In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;there you have a solid place for your feet.Think about it carefully!Don't go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this:just throw away all thoughts ofimaginary things,and stand firm in that which you are.


19/25

I have been thinking

I have been thinking of the difference between waterand the waves on it.

Rising,water's still water, falling back,it is water,will you give me a hinthow to tell them apart?

Because someone has made up the word'wave,' do I haveto distinguish itfrom water?

There is a Secret One inside us;the planets in all the galaxies pass through his hands likebeads.

That is a string of beads one should look at with luminouseyes.


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Are you looking for me?

Are you looking for me?I am in the next seat.

My shoulder is against yours.you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrinerooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs windingaround yourown neck, nor in eating nothing butvegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see meinstantly --you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?He is the breath inside the breath.

Poem 13 - O My heart!

O MY heart! the Supreme Spirit, the great Master, is nearyou: wake, oh wake!Run to the feet of your Beloved: for

your Lord stands near to your head.You have slept for unnumbered ages; this morning will younot wake?

Poem 3 - Within this earthen vessel are bowers andgroves

Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves,and within it is the Creator:

Within this vessel are the seven oceans and theunnumbered stars.

The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within;

And within this vessel the Eternal soundeth,and the spring wells up.

Kabr says: 'Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved Lord iswithin.'


21/25

Poem 15

LAMPS burn in every house, O blind one! and you cannotsee them.

One day your eyes shall suddenly be opened, and youshall see: and the fetters of death will fall from you.There is nothing to say or to hear, there is nothing to do: itis he who is living, yet dead, who shall never die again.

Because he lives in solitude, therefore the Yogi says thathis home is far away.

Your Lord is near: yet you are climbing the palm-tree to

seek Him.The Brahman priest goes from house to house andinitiates people into faith:Alas! the true fountain of life is beside you, and you haveset up a stone to worship.

Kabr says: 'I may never express how sweet my Lord is.Yoga and the telling of beads, virtue and vice-these arenaught to Him.'


22/25

May Sarton


23/25

Now I Become Myself

Now I become myself. It's takenTime, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken,Worn other people's faces,Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying a warning,"Hurry, you will be dead before--"(What? Before you reach the morning?Or the end of the poem is clear?Or love safe in the walled city?)Now to stand still, to be here,

Feel my own weight and density!The black shadow on the paperIs my hand; the shadow of a wordAs thought shapes the shaperFalls heavy on the page, is heard.All fuses now, falls into placeFrom wish to action, word to silence,My work, my love, my time, my faceGathered into one intense

Gesture of growing like a plant.As slowly as the ripening fruitFertile, detached, and always spent,Falls but does not exhaust the root,So all the poem is, can give,Grows in me to become the song,Made so and rooted by love.Now there is time and Time is young.O, in this single hour I liveAll of myself and do not move.I, the pursued, who madly ran,Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!


24/25

(From) The Invocation to Kali

There are times whenI think only of killingThe voracious animalwho is my perpetual

shame,The violent oneWhose raging demandsBreak down peace and shelterLike apeacock's scream.There are times whenIthink only of how to do awayWith this brutepowerThat cannot be tamed.I am the cagewhere poetryPaces and roars. The beastIsthe god. How murder the god?How live withthe terrible god?The Kingdom of KaliAnguish

is always there, lurking at night,Wakes uslike a scourge, the creeping sweatAs rage isremembered, self-inflicted blight.What is itin us we have not mastered yet?What Hellhave we made of the subtle weavingOfnerve with brain, that all centers tear?Welive in a dark complex of rage and grieving.

The machine grates, grates, whatever weare.The kingdom of Kali is within us deep.

The built-in destroyer, the savage goddess,Wakes in the dark and takes away our sleep.She moves through the blood to poisongentleness.She keeps us from being whatwe long to be;Tenderness withers under heriron laws.We may hold her like a lunatic, butit is sheHeld down, who bloodies with herclaws.How then to set her free or come totermsWith the volcano itself, the fierce

powerErupting injuries, shrieking alarms?Kali among her skulls must have her hour.Itis time for the invocation, to atoneFor whatwe fear most and have not dared to face:Kali, the destroyer, cannot be overthrown;We must stay, open-eyed, in the terribleplace.Every creation is born out of the dark.Every birth is bloody. Something gets torn.Kali is there to do her sovereign workOr elsethe living child will be stillborn.She cannotbe cast out (she is here for good)Nor battled


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to the end. Who wins that war?She cannotbe forgotten, jailed, or killed.Heaven muststill be balanced against her.Out ofdestruction she comes to wrestThe juice

from the cactus its harsh spine,And untilshe, the destroyer, has been blest,There willbe no child, no flower, and no wine.It is timefor the invocation:Kali, be with us.Violence,destruction, receive our homage.Help us tobring darkness into the light,To lift out thepain, the anger,Where it can be seen forwhat it isThe balance-wheel for ourvulnerable, aching love.Put the wild hunger

where it belongs,Within the act of creation,Crude power that forges a balanceBetweenhate and love.Help us to be the alwayshopefulGardeners of the spiritWho knowthat without darknessNothing comes to birthAs without lightNothing flowers.Bear theroots in mind,You, the dark one, Kali,Awesome power.

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