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.
Who turns this into that? Sound into noise? Aroma into odor? Taste into pleasure or disgust? Who turns yes into no? Grace into disgrace? Who turns the present into the past? Who turns the now into the not-now? As-it-is into as-it-should-be? Silence into restlessness? Stillness into boredom? The ordinary into the menial? Who turns pain…
Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets’ towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a…
It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages. And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than…
Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvelous error!— that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures. by Antonio Machado This is a part of the longer poem by Antonio Machado, who is seen by many as one…
Earth, I thank you for the pleasure of your language You’ve had a hard time bringing it to me from the ground to grunt thru the noun To all the way feeling seeing smelling touching —awareness I am here! by Anne Spencer I was touched by this little poem, with its gratitude and emerging…
I I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost … I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out. II I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I…
Though the air is full of singing my head is loud with the labor of words. Though the season is rich with fruit, my tongue hungers for the sweet of speech. Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it mute, but must say ‘It is golden,’ while the leaves stir and fall with…
This morning as I walked along the lakeshore, I fell in love with a wren and later in the day with a mouse the cat had dropped under the dining room table. In the shadows of an autumn evening, I fell for a seamstress still at her machine in the tailor’s window, and later for…
In all ten directions of the universe, there is only one truth. When we see clearly, the great teachings are the same. What can ever be lost? What can be obtained? If we attain something, it was there from the beginning of time. If we lost something, it is hiding somewhere near us. Look: this…