Oasis' PoetryPlace
Launched in February 2010 to share favorite poetry and prayers around the themes of
LOVE, PEACE and JUSTICE.
You are welcome to share your own favorite poetry and prayers --
freely by using "comments" or by sending an email to cindygaris@oasismin.org so you can be made an 'author' for this blog.
Sorry we have not found an easier way to allow you to share your insights. If you have other suggestions, please email cindygaris@oasismin.org.
If you make a post, we encourage you to add labels so that others are able to find various resources. Labels may include theme of poem, name of poet, title of poem, etc.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Mystic by D.H. Lawrence
They call all experience of the senses mystic, when the experience is
considered.
So an apple becomes mystic when I taste in it
the summer and the snows, the wild welter of earth
and the insistence of the sun.
All of which things I can surely taste in a good apple.
Though some apples taste preponderantly of water, wet and sour
and some of too much sun, brackish sweet
like lagoon water, that has been too much sunned.
If I say I taste these things in an apple, I am called mystic, which
means a liar.
The only way to eat an apple is to hog it down like a pig
and taste nothing
that is real.
But if I eat an apple, I like to eat it with all my senses awake.
Hogging it down I call the feeding of corpses.
--D. H. Lawrence
The Work of Happiness by May Sarton
Out of the silence in the empty house each day,
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work,
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone.
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room,
A shelf of books, a table, and the whitewashed wall –
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done.
The growing tree is green and musical
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life’s span in a single place;
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness.
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.
Monday, September 20, 2010
The Desire of My Heart by Cindy C
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Holy in the Ordinary by Ann Weems
I rediscovered the following prayer by Ann Weems in her book Kneeling in
Nevertheless, the prayer is a good one for the beginning of Lent, and Weems' questions help us to ponder.
Blessed beginnings,
Cindy
The Holy in the Ordinary by Ann Weems Holy is the time and holy is this place |
Rev. Cindy Garis
Executive Director
Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Development
717-737-8222
Explore www.oasismin.org
Friday, February 12, 2010
At My Window by Linda Pastan
At My Window
By Linda Pastan
(from PM/AM—New & Selected Poems)
I have thought much
about snow,
the mute pilgrimage
of all those flakes
and about the dark wanderings
of leaves
I have stalked
all four seasons
and seen how they beat
the same path
through the same woods
again and again.
I used to take a multitude
of trains, trusting
the strategy of tracks,
of distance.
I sailed on ships
Trusting the arbitrary north.
Now I stand still
at my window
watching the snow
which knows only one direction,
falling in silence
toward silence.
Snow Falling on Snow by Robert J. Wicks
In a cozy little corner I sit and pray,
wrapped in a warm sweater with a candle
lit before a mysterious icon.
Outside, the snow is swirling and the
wind whooshing and the tree branches
scratching against the house wanting to come in.
Then in the spaces in between, when the
wind is forgotten and all is quiet…
I open my heart to listen.
And as I hear the peaceful sound of snow
falling on snow, my soul slowly softens…
and my worries retreat to the edge of the room.
Finally I realize with joy that no matter
how uncertain life may become,
I will always be safe and warm
when I am at home with You.
Amen
Friday, February 5, 2010
Love After Love by Derek Walcott
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Quote pointing toward justice by Salman Rushdie
Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.
- Salman Rushdie
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Quote pointing toward justice by Salman Rushdie
Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.
- Salman Rushdie
Saying on 'love' by Teilhard de Chardin
The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of Love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
- Teilhard de Chardin
Indian saying on 'life'
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
- Indian saying
Quote on 'life' by Howard Thurman
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
- Howard Thurman
Quote on 'beauty' by Rumi
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
- Rumi
Quote on 'Play' by Nagle Jackson
The truly great advances of this generation will be made by those who can make outrageous connections, and only a mind which knows how to play can do that.
- Nagle Jackson
Quote on Attention by Simone Weil
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
- Simone Weil
Quote by Eduardo Galeano
The Church says: The body is a sin.
Science says: The body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The body says: I am a fiesta.
- Eduardo Galeano
Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Quote by Howard Thurman
When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace … to make music in the heart.
- Howard Thurman
American author, civil rights leader, and theologian (1899-1981)
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Primary Wonder by Denise Levertov
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
Prayer for Clearing Up the Past by Marianne Williamson
Please take my past and take my future,
Transform them both through the miracle of Your power into energies of love and love only.
May I know the present as You would have me see it.
May I see only You in everyone and everything that I might be dazzled by the light, lifted up by the light, given joy by the light, and made new by the light.
Release me from my past and deliver me to my future.
In You I trust; nothing else is real.
In You I have faith; nothing else has power.
And so it is that I am where I belong, and I shall strive for nothing.
I am at home; may I feel this and be at peace.
For I would rob myself no longer through my vain imaginings and tormented thoughts.
You are my life.
You are here and now.
Amen.