Simply Blessed » Beauty

Beauty

heartsdeesire — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 06:46:45 +0000

the beauty of the trees

the softness of the air

the fragrance of the grass

speaks to me

and my heart soars

~Chief Dan George~
Opening Ceremonies Vancouver Olympics 2010

The Book of Monastic Life I,59 ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

heartsdeesire — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:10:18 +0000

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Excerpted from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Mary Oliver: A Found Poem

heartsdeesire — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:11:38 +0000

Yes, I’ve gone and done it again. Another found poem. This time instead of contrasting two poets together, I have taken one poet: Mary Oliver and pulled pieces from 8 different poems to bring together a brand new poem. I’ve taken no more than two to four lines from each poem. Each verse is from a different poem and in a few cases a pronoun has been changed. After this found poem, I cite the poems that were used to create it.

Every morning I walk softly and with forward glances
down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.

I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.

I have thought sometimes that
something – I can’t name it -
watches as I walk

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”

Later, lying half-asleep under
the blankets, I watch
while the doe, glittering with rain, steps
under the wet slabs of the pines

These are the woods I love,
where the secret name
of every death is life again – a miracle

Someday I’ll live in the sky.
Meanwhile the house of my life is this green world.

In the book of the earth it is written:
nothing can die.

~Mary Oliver~

One
The Place I Want to Get Back To
Beans
When I Am Among the Trees
Clapp’s Pond
Skunk Cabbage
Boundaries
Ghosts

Mary Oliver & Wendell Berry – A Found Poem

heartsdeesire — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:11:37 +0000

If there is such a thing as poetic license, I am certainly taking it now. I have created what is known as a ‘found’ poem. Up until now, this poem has not existed. I have selected a couple of lines each from eight different poems and two different authors. I chose Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry for this creation. At the end of this found poem, I have cited the poems I used.

If you like to play with poetry, you can do this, too. I found it a wonderful exercise as something to just drop the day’s events and lose myself inside the soft belly of poetry. Enjoy…

* * *

I would like to write a poem about the world
that has in it, nothing fancy

Like our travels, our workdays
burned upon the world.

And forgetting everything I will leap to name it
as though for the first time

Turning always in my mind toward you,
your slopes, folds, gentle openings.

As a poem or a prayer, can also make
luminous any dark place on earth.

Maybe we’re necessary to each other,
and this vacant place has need of us both.

Calling us back to why, how and whence
such beauty and what the meaning.

To its joy we come together–the seer
and the seen, the eater and the eaten,
the lover and the loved.

* * *

Each verse was extracted from individual poems. The pattern begins with Mary Oliver, then Wendell Berry and continues to alternate authors and poems throughout, ending with Wendell Berry. The following references the poems used in the order that they appear:
Mary Oliver, This World
Wendell Berry, Horses
Mary Oliver, Tasting the Wild Grapes
Wendell Berry, Letter
Mary Oliver, May
Wendell Berry, A Music
Mary Oliver, First Snow
Wendell Berry, The Hidden Singer

Wisdom of Nature

heartsdeesire — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:05:32 +0000

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. ~William Shakespeare

Magical Mt. Rainier

heartsdeesire — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:11:21 +0000

Wow! I had to post this image of lenticular clouds seen over Mt. Rainier this weekend.
Just one of the many joys of living in the state of Washington!

Magic in the Air

heartsdeesire — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:51:15 +0000

I got in the car with Kayla, my youngest daughter today. Our cats were living the indignity of eating dog food, it was time for a trip to the store! To our right was sun and to our left was rain. I said to Kayla, today is a great day for rainbows and at that very moment I turned my head to the left and what did I see, not one but TWO rainbows and I could see one of them from end to end. I’ve seen rainbows a couple of times out here max and to have it happen today just after I re-found my alignment on a subject so dear to me was very beautiful to witness.

Anything is possible. It’s always been that way. I had a brief time where I had forgotten that I live in a Universe that provides completely and totally. Now I remember.

Love, Bethie