The time

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying



I went closer

and I did not die.

Surely God
 
had His hand in this,



as well as friends,

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,



was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It's not the weight you carry



but how you carry it--

books, bricks, grief--

it's all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it



when you cannot, and would not,

put it down."

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?



Have you heard the laughter 

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?



How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe



also troubled--

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep wave,

a love

to which there is no reply?





- Mary Oliver







 

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be 

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.



Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the

Indian in a white poncho lies dead

by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed

through the night

with plans and the simple breath

that kept him alive.



Before you know kindness

as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.



Then it is only kindness

that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day

to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

it is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.



-Naomi Shihab Nye

B e n e d i c t o :


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 desert of red rock,

blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and
  
    grottos of endless stone,

and down again into a deep vast ancient
  
   unknown chasm

where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled
  
    cliffs,

where deer walk across the white sand
  
   beaches,

where storms come and go

as lightning clangs upon the high crags,

where something strange and more beautiful

and more wonderful than your deepest
  
   dreams

waits for you-

beyond the next turning of the canyon
  
   walls.    





-Edward Abbey (1927 - 1989)

"If a label is required, say I am one who loves the unfenced country"






 

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time

Any fool can do it

There ain't nothing to it

Nobody knows how we got to

The top of the hill

But since we're on our way down

We might as well enjoy the ride



The secret of love is in opening up your heart

It's okay to feel afraid

But don't let that stand in your way

'cause anyone knows that love is the only road

And since we' re only here for a while

Might as well show some style

Give us a smile



Isn't it a lovely ride

Sliding down

Gliding down

Try not to try too hard

It's just a lovely ride



Now the thing about time is that time

Isn't really real

It's just your point of view

How does it feel for you

Einstein said he could never understand it all

Planets spinning through space

The smile upon your face

Welcome to the human race

Some kind of lovely ride

I'll be sliding down

I'll be gliding down

Try not to try too hard

It's just a lovely ride



Isn't it a lovely ride

Sliding down

Gliding down

Try not to try too hard

It's just a lovely ride



Now the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time




- James Taylor

In the morning when I wake up and listen to the sound
Of the birds outside on the roof
I try to ignore what the paper says
And I try not to read all the news
And I'll hold you if you had a bad dream
And I hope it never comes true
'Cause you and I been through so many things together
And the sun starts climbing the roof

It's a dream
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away
It's only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay

The Red River still flows through my home town
Rollin' and tumblin' on its way
Swirling around the old bridge pylons
Where a boy fishes the morning away
His bicycle leans on an oak tree
While the cars rumble over his head
An aeroplane leaves a trail in an empty blue sky
And the young birds call out to be fed

It's a dream
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away
It's only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay

An old man walks along on the sidewalk
Sunglasses and an old Stetson hat
The four winds blow the back of his overcoat away
As he stops with the policeman to chat
And a train rolls out of the station
That was really somethin' in its day
Picking up speed on the straight prairie rails
As it carries the passengers away

It's gone
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away
Only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay

It's a dream
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away
It's only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay

It's a dream
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away

- Neil Young

"It's a Dream"

from Prairie Wind

Something was out there on the lake, just barely

visible in the dark.

I knelt and stared, trying to make it out,

trying to mark



its position relative to mine,

and the picturesque willow, the moon-silvered diving board

on the opposite shore. I listened hard

but heard



no sound from it, although I cupped one ear

as I knelt in the cove,

wondering how far I should take this, if I should seek

someone to row out there with me. Yet it didn't move



or grow darker or lighter. Most shapes,

you know what they are:

a rock-garden serpent, a house in the mist, a man's head,

an evening star,



but not this one. Whatever was out there kept changing

from large to small.

The mass of a wooden coffin surfaced,

then the head of an owl,



a tree limb, a window, a veil -

I couldn't resolve it. I ran one hand through my hair

as I stood up, shrugging. I had just turned fifty

and whatever it was that might be floating there



I didn't want it to be. Too much before

that came unbidden into my life

I'd let take me over. I knelt again and stared again.

Something was out there just beyond the cove.







- Dick Allen