Tag: Poetry

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Tippett: And then you talk about growing up in a sad, depressed place, a difficult place. You don’t belabor this, I mean, and in other places — there’s a place you talk about you were one of many thousands who’ve had insufficient childhoods, but that you spent a lot of your time walking around the woods in Ohio.

Oliver: Yes, I did, and I think it saved my life. To this day, I don’t care for the enclosure of buildings. It was a very bad childhood — for everybody, every member of the household, not just myself, I think — and I escaped it, barely, with years of trouble. But I did find the entire world, in looking for something. But I got saved by poetry, and I got saved by the beauty of the world.

— Mary Oliver, from “I Got Saved by the Beauty of the World” in “On Being Interview with Krista Tippett” (Feb 15 2015)

Notes:

  1. 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.
  2. Poem Source. Thank you Make Believe Boutique.

Exactly the scene at 2:42 a.m.

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Come outside, you laugh. You are
standing on the lawn holding
a bag of shit and the dog leash. You say
look, look at the moon. And I do.

— M. Soledad Caballero, from “When You Go Out to Walk the Dog” in “I Was a Bell“

Notes:

  • Poem Source: Read A Little Poetry
  • DK Photo: Waning Crescent Moon. 40% illumination. 62° F. 2:42 am. August 27, 2024. Darien, CT

Hello, sun in my face

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Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

— Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

Sunrise photos from this morning. 6:20 to 6:40 am. August 24, 2024. Cove Island Park. More pictures from this morning: Twilight here. Sunrise here.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Still, ritual is journey, atonement is real.
As you lay dying, I asked,
What is your biggest regret?
Every kindness withheld, you said.
Every flicker of pleasure denied, you said.
Look, you said, sunlight.

— Chris Abani, from “Ritual Is Journey” in “Sanctificum” (Copper Canyon Press; April 1, 2010)

Notes:

  1. 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.
  2. Poem Source from orpheuslament
  3. Chris Abani bio and portrait via Poetry Foundation

Lightly Child, Lightly. (The Darkness Around Us is Deep)

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Now I carry those days in a tiny box
wherever I go. I open the lid like this
and let the light glimpse and then glance away.
There is a sigh like my breath when I do this.
Some days I do this again and again.

— William Stafford, from “Remembering” in The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems.

Notes:

  • Poem Source: Thank you Beth via Alive on All Channels
  • Photo: DK 4:45am this morning at Cove Island Park. For more photos from this morning, click here.
  • Thursday Posts inspired by 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.