Denise Levertov Talking to Grief

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.

Atlas - UA Fanthorpe

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

Don’t be nice - Jeff Foster

Don't be nice!
Nice is boring.
Nice is fake.
Nice was an adaptation
designed to win you love.

It doesn't work.
Be real instead.

Nice is a mask
which covers up your anger, irritation,
frustration, disappointment
(beautiful energies you learned to smother
when you were young).

Nice will suffocate you
and everyone else around you.

Nice keeps others
from ever really knowing you.

Take the risk of not being nice!
Take the risk of showing yourself.
Be prepared for others to dislike you.
To think you're selfish, cold, mean,
or even worse: "Unspiritual".

Say what you mean!
Say yes when you mean yes.
Say no when you mean no.

Take the risk
of looking after yourself!

Be prepared to feel alive again.
To feel your heart pounding.
To sweat. To shake.
To wonder if you have the right...

To finally feel your guilt and shame
instead of running away from them.

Be prepared for your 'nice' world
to crumble.

Be prepared to lose your
carefully crafted image.

Be prepared to feel
the rush of newness! 

The Sound of the Sea - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep; 

A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.

Sweet Darkness - David Whyte

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

Sleeping In The Forest | Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

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

My Brilliant Image by Hafiz

One day the sun admitted,
I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you
The Infinite Incandescence
That has cast my brilliant image!
I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing Light
Of your own Being!