FOR ONE WHO IS EXHAUSTED, John O’Donohue

 

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.

Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

THE MAYO TAO - DEREK MAHON

 

I have abandoned the dream kitchens for a low fire

and a prescriptive literature of the spirit;
a storm snores on the desolate sea.
The nearest shop is four miles away –
when I walk there through the shambles
of the morning for tea and firelighters
the mountain paces me in a snow-lit silence.
My days are spent in conversation
with deer and blackbirds;
at night fox and badger gather at my door.
I have stood for hours
watching a salmon doze in the tea-gold dark,
for months listening to the sob story
of a stone in the road, the best,
most monotonous sob story I have ever heard.

I am an expert on frost crystals
and the silence of crickets, a confidant
of the stinking shore, the stars in the mud –
there is an immanence in these things
which drives me, despite my scepticism,
almost to the point of speech,
like the sunlight cleaving the lake mist at morning
or when tepid water
runs cold at last from the tap.

I have been working for years
on a four-line poem
about the life of a leaf;
I think it might come out right this winter.

Copyright: Derek Mahon, Selected Poems, Penguin, 2000.

Collected Poems, Gallery Press, 1999.

 

Where is beauty? poem

WHERE IS BEAUTY?

in the eye
or somewhere inside
the body

HUMMING

on its wheel

BASK

in sunlight

Study the humility
of grass

the steadfast
trees

Hold on to this breath-thread

reins
to calm my 
Restless

HEART

A Poem for Mothering Ourselves

I'm preparing a class for next week on the topic of Mothering Ourselves. I want to incorporate some beautiful serene music about the feminine face of god, and a visualization,  imagining the Shekinah or female companion of God in spirit form wrapping her wings around me, or soothing my brow with the palm of her hand, or lying in the lap of Buddha....here is a poem to go with that self-compassion.

What If?

by Jena Strong.

What if you knew
that everything was going to be okay,
that something was in motion
beyond your field of vision,

beyond even the periphery
of your knowing?

What if you knew
that everything you want,
everything you’ve been seeking,
trying to figure out, missing,
is right here, already whole
in your hands, in your life?
What if taking in what is
could satisfy your longing?

What if you could rest your frantic, racing, busy mind
and rest your neglected, tired body,
put your head down in someone’s lap
to have your hair stroked,
like a cat, or a child?

What if you didn’t need to understand
how it works,
but could enjoy the magic
of how love shows itself
in the most unexpected, simplest of gestures?
What if everything is just it should be?

What if nothing had to be better,
bigger, different, or other?
What would you do then?
Who would you be?"

 (SoulCollage cards representing Rest, on top, and the Great Mother).

Jennifer/Musemother

It’s Dawning on Me

If we do everything else but that one thing, we will be lost. And if we do

nothing else but that one thing, we will have lived a glorious life. Rumi

In my solitary quest

for a silent Sunday morning

free of phones and idle chatter

and hungry for connection,

I watch the hazy sky at dawn.

Then seek the bronze/gold sun

of the inner sunrise,

under the rich cashmere shawl

of breath.

Where thoughts are thrown back

into the lake like fish

too small to keep.

I am after bigger fish,

the One Voice that purrs

and picks me up, kitten

in its mouth.

Held by the wide Mothercomfort,

awe in the face of such deep

nourishment, a seed

reawakens-- the passion

for living inside-out.

Women's Stories

the ones we tell each other,

late at night or early in the morning

over coffee & a cigarette,

more than one if it's a story we've told

over and over like chain smoking, like

dirty laundry soaking in the tub, stains

evoking lost memories of teething, cut

lips, blood on the sweatshirt where

you held his head & he bled all over you

& you want to speak about this love

you have for other women who listen

intently, with their own pain showing

& many cigarettes to carry them

through the telling.

a compassionate voice or ear,

the closeness we feel yet cannot say

because we're afraid of a label

but what we really want, I want,

is someone fearless, a weaver of words

or truthteller, someone who's not afraid

of hurting while resetting a bone.

to talk about the helplessness of being

stuck in a house with a sick child,

the boredom that strikes,

the complaining we do, being called martyr

when all I really want is to tell someone

how unfair it is that I'm the only one

they call for in the middle of the night

& it's my ears hear them coughing

at 3 a.m. & I can't just lie there.

how to find out what our own needs are

& how to take care of ourselves,

not just wait for him to come home, take over,

pick up the toys and the pieces, mop up our spills,

how to find a quiet time, time alone,

time to think & write.

our need to be replenished with each other,

filling up our bowls with sugar & coffee

so we can tell our stories

not just talking over fences in the backyard

but actually getting out & seeing women

doing the same hard work,

no pay, no thanks, just their little faces

when one least expects it, smiling & asking

me to sing a song about I love you

 or making up a song about superman

all by himself in the living room.

he says, go away mom, don't talk (meaning

I have to do this alone, don't listen

cause it might not be perfect the first time).

I send you this in guise of a letter

because that's the way the words are falling out

of my fingers. in my mind I hear

the tapping on keys and it comforts me

at least I can listen to myself talk

without talking out loud (for that's

what crazy women do).

so I keep on writing & dreaming

trying to live truthfully

with my emotions, in my body

and I hope you do the same.

from Little Mother, Jennifer Boire

published 1997

Autumn Poem by John Keats, 1819

TO AUTUMN.

                                            1.

    SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
            To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
            For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

                                            2.

    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
            Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
            Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                            3.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
            Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
           And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Empowering the Feminine within: A woman who follows her own heart

SoulCollage(R) Card Shamanic Healer & Storyteller

“The things women are most yearning for---such as deeper connection, spiritual awakening, self-expression, creativity, right livelihood, creating an enlightened world for generations to come---all require a new level of Feminine Power to bring them forth.” Jean Houston

A woman who follows her own heart has learned to listen to her intuition.

A woman who follows her own heart listens to her body guidance.

A woman who follows her own heart shares deeply, listens deeply, is present with others.

A woman who follows her own heart feels her fear, acknowledges it, but is not held back by it.

A woman who follows her own heart is always expanding, growing, learning.

A woman who follows her own heart discovers her true desires and interests.

A woman who follows her own heart is impatient to get started.

A woman who follows her own heart believes in herself, and her creative powers.

A woman who follows her own heart is able to say no, and speak her truth.

A woman who follows her own heart knows the value of doing nothing, of rest and recuperation.

A woman who follows her own heart knows that to go down and in is preparation for coming out and up.

A woman who follows her own heart is a source of calm, a balm for others.

A woman who follows her own heart leans inward in times of trouble, but is not afraid to ask for help.

A woman who follows her own heart knows that angels and guides are watching over her.

A woman who follows her own heart knows her own value.

A woman who follows her own heart accepts herself as she is, flawed but fabulous.

A woman who follows her own heart lets her children be flawed and fabulous too.

A woman who follows her own heart stands her ground.

A woman who follows her own heart knows how to be grounded in root energy.

A woman who follows her own heart lets go to the flow of synchronicity.

A woman who follows her own heart trusts the Universe and knows she is loved.

A woman who follows her own heart has a constant companion and Friend within.

A woman who follows her own heart reaches out in compassion to those who suffer, she has been there too.

A woman who follows her own heart creates an atmosphere of love and caring around her.

A woman who follows her own heart remembers where her Joy is.

A woman who follows her own heart laughs from the belly.

A woman who follows her own heart loves her body and knows she is beautiful within and without.

A woman who follows her own heart forgives herself for her mistakes.

A woman who follows her own heart is in love with Beauty.

A woman who follows her own heart is in touch with her feminine power.

Any woman who follows her own heart can learn to be this woman.

Any woman who is aware of where she is and how she feels, and doesn’t try to pretend to be something different, can be this woman.

You are that woman with heart, unfolding, becoming, and realizing herself as the goal.

Heart is the Hearth and Home of you. Come home to your heart!

Suddenly in two worlds

 with apologies to Wallace Stevens

A woman is always suddenly in two worlds,
over the morning's breakfast plates
jammed up knives, amid soccer behind the hedge,
screaming, thuds, kicked leather.
The wind calls her to write: birds at the feeder
startle when the big black dog runs out
and her poems are suddenly startled, fleeing
before she can grab paper and pen.
The kids come in: one tries her flute, he opens
the side gate to greet the barking lab.

We are many worlds wrapped up in
this green space, the (good) Mom she tries to be
while the Poet skulks back into the slow cooker
left on simmer all day, closes the notepad
and pads in socking feet back
to the kitchen. 

Eve reimagines her beginning

“I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over man: she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, and became a transgressor.”  (I Tim 2:11-14) 

Naming Adam

“She desires herself alone, fulfills her desire

becomes pregnant from that desire.”

               Reinventing Eve, Kim Chernin

Some say she was pulled from his rib

golden in the leaves of paradise

or rose from the spermy sea on a shell

foam on the salt waves.

But the first woman entered like lightning

from the wet red cave

a sea of milk in her breasts

rich menstrual blood in her womb.

She took of her blood

mixed it with clay, then swallowed it,

dancing, churned the moonblood

in her belly to a child.

From the cleft of light, the sacred

opening, the first man was born.

She licked her blood from the clay-wet form

breathed life into his mouth.

He called her Eve, because she was the mother

of all living beings.

She named him Adam, for the red earth

from which he was made.

(published, Poetry Canada, 1990)

Poem for the soul

Bone, from Why I Wake Early (2004)

by Mary Oliver

1.

 Understand, I am always trying to figure out

what the soul is,

and where hidden,

and what shape

and so, last week,

when I found on the beach

the ear bone

of a pilot whale that may have died

hundreds of years ago, I thought

maybe I was close

to discovering something

for the ear bone

2.

is the portion that lasts longest

in any of us, man or whale; shaped

like a squat spoon

with a pink scoop where

once, in the lively swimmer's head,

it joined its two sisters

in the house of hearing,

it was only

two inches long

and  I thought: the soul

might be like this

so hard, so necessary

3.

yet almost nothing.

Beside me

the gray sea

was opening and shutting its wave-doors,

unfolding over and over

its time-ridiculing roar;

I looked but I couldn't see anything

through its dark-knit glare;

yet don't we all know, the golden sand

is there at the bottom,

though our eyes have never seen it,

nor can our hands ever catch it

4.

lest we would sift it down

into fractions, and facts

certainties

and what the soul is, also

I believe I will never quite know.

Though I play at the edges of knowing,

truly I know

our part is not knowing,

but looking, and touching, and loving,

which is the way I walked on,

softly,

through the pale-pink morning light.

Give me Birdsong

In the dark times will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times.
Bertolt Brecht

Give me bird song
to lighten the sadness,
the coming dark.

Give me rainfall
to sweeten November grass.

Give me long summer nights
and Danish choirs singing
into the light that lasts
until September.

Give me a woman in black
playing piano in the shadows
where we cannot see her.
Let the melody and music
float down to us below,
beside the crooked house
with tilting stairs,
white linens.

Give me what is broken, but true.
For I have grown to hate
 a song that hits all the right noes
but has no blackedged heart.

Let my brokenness
be bird song.

Jennifer Boire

Be Where You Are

Tami Kent

Whether sunlight streams through the window
or the rain drops down,
be where you are.

At times you will be weary
confounded by mixed signals or crossed signs.
Reaching and striving
will produce only dead ends.

So be where you are
back in your center
where there is always
air and light
time and peace
and possibility.

Leave the phone calls
and the work load
worries, conflicts, and expectations
lying where they may
and be where you are.

There with the crying child
or the laundry pile
and the nascent hopes and dreams.
Whether lonely and afraid
or simply noticing the spaces
in between thoughts and words and actions.

Just be where you are
with your breath in and out
and the beauty in front of eyes that see.
With potential in your hands reaching out
and your heart open again to this mystery.

“The Muse Mother” (1982)

by Eavan Boland

My window pearls wet.
The bare rowan tree
berries rain.
I can see
from where I stand
a woman hunkering –
her busy hand
worrying a child’s face,
working a nappy liner
over his sticky, loud
round of a mouth.
Her hand’s a cloud
across his face,
making light and rain,
smiles and a frown,
a smile again.
She jockeys him to her hip,
pockets the nappy liner,
collars rain on her nape
and moves away,
but my mind stays fixed:
If I could only decline her –
Lost noun
Out of context,
Stray figure of speech –
From this rainy street
Again to her roots,
She might teach me
A new language:
To be a sibyl
Able to sing the past
In pure syllables,
Limning hymns sung
To belly wheat or a woman,
Able to speak at last
My mother’s tongue.

I had no idea there was another use for Muse Mother out there, let alone a poem!
My other blog, Musemother is here: www.questinggirl.blogspot.com
/jenn

Love has to be felt

Love has to be felt; it cannot be 

a definition in words. Drink 

until your thirst is quenched. 

Eat until your hunger is satisfied. 

Sleep until you are rested. 

Search until you have found peace 

and then, understand.

There is incense already burning 

in the house of your body — smell it. 

It is the perfume of God.

Smell it. And be satisfied, 

be content.

Excerpts from address by Prem Rawat 
wwww.wopg.org 

More Menopause Poems

Soul Mate, after Twenty Years

Jennifer Boire

Sleepless in the night, you toss and I turn.

Such a gentle man, even in your sleep

you laugh and chuckle, while I grind my teeth.

Slow to anger, you are mute sometimes,

at other times eloquent as mint,

sharp as old cheddar.

Husband and wife, we have shared

first a captain’s bed, then

a double, then a queen’s, now a bed

fit for a king, And blessed it with our wandering

hands, enlivened it with our howling,

whispering, smooching.

Ever since that first kiss of recognition

I felt you calling me home,

that feeling of two halves clicking in,

then struggle as we lit out, each on our own paths,

and babies didn’t come as easily

as we had predicted, but we both got

a chance to finish our higher education

and find meaningful work

before the babies came.

Long nights of walking up and down

halls with a colicky baby cradled on your arm,

or me, sleepy, nursing or crawling after toddlers,

and somehow we are still here, still together,

ready for a new adventure, two teenagers

filling the house with their boisterous

love, and moody noise.

O let us linger longer into old age. Let us

Still hanker after each other, alive with desire.

Let us not hamper each other.

Let us each fill our selves separately

and come together to share

what we have found.

In ups and downs and disappointing

tired, cranky, or high uplifted times

let us live, rooted, in love.

2 Poems for Menopause

Conversation with a woman over forty

Happiness is the best face-lift. Joni Mitchell

Why change your face?

My mother had that gullet

Fill the cup within - your husband

& sons will taste the sweetness.

          crow’s feet in the mirror

          loose skin under the chin

I know, I know

a woman past forty needs reassurance

her beauty has not faded,

that the body can perform

its usual tricks.

          I’d rather go under the scalpel

          than look like that

Beyond your face, such depth

of wanting sears your skin –

they all would drink.

Jennifer Boire

A Poem written against Despair

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

Naomi Shihab Nye

She walked around the circular block of her neighbourhood

and saw that it was good.

She saw lawns newly cut, hedges neatly trimmed,

gardens clipped and tidy.

She saw chrysanthemums flourishing in pots,

purple and gold. She saw asters and brown-eyed

Susan’s in abundance.

She saw three children in the playground.

One toddler, hands full of cookies, came to pat Maggie.  

(Maggie saw that it was good).

She saw the fresh pavement on the driveway,

where a new family had just moved in.

She saw the sumacs flaming orange and red

along the soccer field, maples’ tips torched

with the same fire.

She saw houses, driveways and lawns,

each one more beautiful than the last.

She saw the sky was blue and the sun

was warm, and she told herself

that to be alive, right here and now,

was good.

She took a deep breath, and told herself,

just for today, all I can do

is quiet the war inside of me,

give up the struggle in my own heart.

If just for today, one person gives up despair

and practices opening her heart to hope,

then peace in the heart will be her gift.

 Jennifer Boire

Woman in fog

from For the Birds, Little Red Bird Press

If only she could, she would give her

heart to her husband, womb to her daughter,

arms to her son. But her body lies on the floor

awaiting rejuvenation, still breathing, broken.

What to do on the days when tears drop

into her soup? It’s ok to do nothing, she thinks,

just simple tasks like laundry.

She picks up a book of poems instead, reads

“trees lose parts of themselves inside

a circle of fog” *

She’s in a thick fog, has shed her leaves, 

absorbed moisture till she has water on the

brain, disoriented by the shift that wakes

her at night, puts other parts of her to sleep,

brought to her knees in a wave of heat and tears, 

unable to exchange the chief’s hat

for the sombrero.

Her feet feel heavy, her mind dull.

She tells herself, it is only temporary,

lie fallow, compost.

Oh the music she needs to comfort her,

and the long night she’ll travel through

until the bright dawn reclaims her.

Human, faulty, imperfect,

like the low thrum she hears in Cohen’s voice.

Claiming darkness as its source

it rings true, full of light.

*(Excerpted line from poem by Francis Ponge)

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER - by Erma Bombeck

If I had my life to live over, I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television - and more while watching life.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you's".. More "I'm sorrys" ...

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute... look at it and really see it ... live it...and never give it back.

© Erma Bombeck

(various versions of this are floating on the web, but I think this one is close to the original)