Tag: Happiness

Lightly Child, Lightly

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I remember how [the sparrow] felt
When I got my hand, and how it burst
that hand open
when I took it outside, a strength

that must have come out of hopelessness
and the sudden light
and the trees…

— Stephen Dunn, from “The Sudden Light and the Trees,” in Landscape at the End of the Century

Notes:

  • Photo: Sparrow by © sergey_polyushko
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Lightly Child, Lightly

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A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me – a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out, metallic – or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

~Denise Levertov, “Variations on a Theme By Rilke” in “Denise Levertov: The Poetry of Engagement”

Notes:

  • Photograph by Marta Bevacqua via see more
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Lightly Child, Lightly

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In recent months I have become intent on seizing happiness:
to this end I applied various shades of blue…
I am trying to invent a new way of moving under my dress…
yet the thigh keeps quiet under nylon…
draw nearer my dear: never fear: the world spins
nightly toward its brightness and we are on it.

~ Carolyn “C.D.” Wright, from “Crescent,” Tremble: Poems

Notes:

  • Photograph via Newthom
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

This morning. This moment is close by. Today it will arrive.

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Many people believe that there exists in the world’s coordinate system a perfect point where time and space reach an agreement. This may even be why these people travel, leaving their homes behind, hoping that even by moving around in a chaotic fashion they will increase their likelihood of happening upon this point. Landing at the right time in the right place—seizing the opportunity, grabbing the moment and not letting go—would mean the code to the safe had been cracked, the combination revealed, the truth exposed. No more being passed by, no more surfing coincidences, accidents, and turns of fate. You don’t have to do anything—you just have to show up, sign in at that one single configuration of time and place. There you will find your great love, happiness, a winning lottery ticket… Sometimes in the morning one even has the impression that this moment is close by, that today might be the day it will arrive.

~ Olga Tokarczuk, from “The Right Time and Place” in Flights (Penguin Publishing Group. August 13, 2018)

Photo: Monica dofa (via Mennyfox55)

A good memory moves me through the current

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I hear birds and whispers
Like water gnawing a hull

I build a fire
In the bottom of my boat
A good memory moves me through the current

—Frank Stanford, from “If She Lives in the Hills,” What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford

 

Notes: Poem: via Vale of Soul Making. Photo (via The Guardian) by Cherry Kearton in 1890s: Dartford warbler and chick on Richard Kearton’s hand: ‘By the exercise of a little patience I tamed the adult female until she would at last alight on my hand and feed one of the fledglings, at rest on my wrist, without the slightest sign of fear or nervousness.