Poems can be a doorway into another world. Each one, a simple arrangement of otherwise ordinary words, that together evoke presence, wonder, possibility. So here is an invitation to pause, let the words wash over you and glimpse the world they offer you…
It’s a growing collection, and we’d love to hear which ones resonate with you and why, and find out about your favourites. Here is an index of our Words of Wonder.
I swear my way now will be to continue without plan or hope, to accept the drift of things, to shift from endless effort to joy in, say, that robin, plunging into the mossy shallows of my bird bath and splashing madly till the air shines with spray. Joy it will be, say, in Nancy,…
My beloved child, break your heart no longer. Each time you judge yourself you break your own heart. You stop feeding on the love, which is the wellspring of your vitality. The time has come, your time To live, to celebrate… and to see the goodness that you are… Let no one, no thing, no…
One day it’s the clouds, one day the mountains. One day the latest bloom of roses—the pure monochromes, the dazzling hybrids—inspiration for the cathedral’s round windows. Every now and then there’s the splendor of thought: the singular idea and its brilliant retinue— words, cadence, point of view, little gold arrows flitting between the lines. And…
Kingfisher: the colour-giver, fire-bringer, flame-flicker, river’s quiver. Ink-black bill, orange throat, and a quick blue back-gleaming feather-stream. Neat and still it sits on the snag of a stick, until with… Gold-flare, wing-fan, whipcrack the kingfisher – zingfisher, singfisher- Flashes down too fast to follow, quick and quicker carves its hollow In the water, slings its…
The eyes of the future are looking back at us, and they are praying that we might see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect…
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honourably. He may be…
There is no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado. Dam a stream and it will create a new channel. Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in – the wild and…
Let your eyes fall easy upon me, And gaze without intention or preconceived idea of what I am. My shape is not me, as yours is not you. There is more to it than that. More to it than meets the eye, or the precept. Think more of what I may be, of what I…
Kristine has been providing us with her wonderful Words of Wonder. Duncan and I are inspired by this and have decided to share some of our favourite poems, and those of our tutors and members too. This week we have a wonderful poem by Danna Faulds. This was introduced to me at my very first…
There is nothing more innocent than the still-unformed creature I find beneath the soil, neither of us knowing what it will become in the abundance of the planet. It makes a living only by remaining still in its niche. One day it might struggle out of its tender pearl of blind skin with a wing…
Clouds are flowing in the river, waves are flying in the sky. Life is laughing in a pebble. Does a pebble ever die? Flowers grow out of garbage, such a miracle to see. What seems dead and what seems dying makes for butterflies to be. Life is laughing in a pebble, flowers bathe in the…
grace gives me a day too beautiful I had thought to stay indoors & yet washing my dishes straightening my shelves finally throwing out the wilted onions shrunken garlic cloves I discover I am happy to be inside looking out. This, I think, is wealth. Just this choosing of how a beautiful day is spent.…
Love means to learn to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills. A bird and a tree say to him: Friend. Then he wants to use himself and things So…
This magnificent refuge is inside you. Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway. Be bold. Be humble. Put away the incense and forget the incantations they taught you. Ask no permission from the authorities. Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you…
When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do…
Love the earth like a mole,fur-near. Nearsighted,hold close the clods,their fine-print headlines.Pat them with soft hands — Like spades, but pink and loving; theybreak rock, nudge giants aside,affable plow.Fields are to touch;each day nuzzle your way. Tomorrow the world. by William Stafford Just back from teaching on Holy Isle, my earth-love is very much…
I Do not Want to step so quickly Over a beautiful line on God’s palm As I move through the earth’s Marketplace Today. I do not want to touch any object in this world Without my eyes testifying to the truth That everything is My Beloved. Something has happened To my understanding of…
Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don’t try to figure anything out. Don’t try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest. by Tilopa (translated by Ken McLeod) These words from the 10th century Indian master Tilopa have clearly…
The stars fell through my window tonight AstonishedI got up They were everywhereCalling me Shiny bright and brilliantPeeping through the pinesPlaying peek-a-boo with the cloudsScattering diamonds everywhere Such Largesse How could I be so luckyTo be so loved by this good earth By Lauretta Santarossa I’m writing from Samye Ling this week where I’m…
Let’s remake the world with words.Not frivolously, norTo hide from what we fear,But with a purpose. Let’s,As Wordsworth said, remove“The dust of custom” so thingsShine again, each object arrayedIn its robe of original light. And then we’ll see the worldAs if for the first time.As once we gazed at the belovedWho was gazing at us.…
It may be that when we no longer know what to dowe have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to gowe have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. by Wendell Berry…
These shriveled seeds we plant,corn kernel, dried bean,poke into loosened soil,cover over with measured fingertips These T-shirts we fold intoperfect white squares These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp stripsThis rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl This bed whose covers I straightensmoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanketand nothing hangs out…
Sometimes simplicity riseslike a blossom of firefrom the white silk of your own skin.You were there in the beginningyou heard the story, you heard the mercilessand tender words telling you where you had to go.Exile is never easy and the journeyitself leaves a bitter taste. But then,when you heard that voice, you had to go.You…
May you be blessed in the holy names of thoseWho, without you knowing it,Help to carry and lighten your pain. May you know serenityWhen you are calledTo enter the house of suffering. May a window of light always surprise you. May you be granted the wisdomTo avoid false resistance;When suffering knocks on the door of…
I want to be ever a childI want to feel an eternal friendshipfor the raindrops, the flowers,the insects, the snowflakes.I want to be keenly interested in everything,with mind and muscle ever alert, forgetting my troubles in the next moment.The stars and the sea, the ponds and the trees,the birds and the animals, are my comrades.Though…
The universe does notrevolve around you.The stars and planets spinningthrough the ballroom of spacedance with one anotherquite outside of your small life.You cannot hold gravityor seasons; even air and waterinevitably evade your grasp.Why not, then, let go? You could move through timelike a shark through water,neither restless or ceasing,absorbed in and absorbingthe native element.Why pretend…
I don’t take your wordsMerely as words.Far from it. I listenTo what makes you talk – Whatever that is – And me listen. by Shinkichi Takahashi.Translated from the Japanese by Lucien Stryk & Takahashi Ikemoto I’m not sure how come, but I’ve had an unusual amount of rich conversations and deep heart-meetings this week. They’ve left…
We think we get over things.We don’t get over things.Or say, we get over the measlesbut not a broken heart.We need to make that distinction.The things that become part of our experiencenever become less a part of our experience.How can I say it?The way to “get over” a life is to die.Short of that, you…
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 your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for…
The same stream of life that runsthrough my veins night and day runsthrough the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joythrough the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass andbreaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked…