Snowdrops

Photo credit: jdurham from morguefile.com

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know

what despair is; then

winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,

earth suppressing me. I didn't expect

to waken again, to feel

in damp earth my body

able to respond again, remembering

after so long how to open again

in the cold light

of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again

crying yes, risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

~ Louise Gluck

____________________________________

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Snowdrops

Photo credit: jdurham from morguefile.com

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know

what despair is; then

winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,

earth suppressing me. I didn't expect

to waken again, to feel

in damp earth my body

able to respond again, remembering

after so long how to open again

in the cold light

of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again

crying yes, risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

~ Louise Gluck

____________________________________

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Parable Of Faith

Now, in twilight, on the palace steps

the king asks forgiveness of his lady.

He is not

duplicitous; he has tried to be

true to the moment; is there another way of being

true to the self?

The lady

hides her face, somewhat

assisted by the shadows. She weeps

for her past; when one has a secret life,

one's tears are never explained.

Yet gladly would the king bear

the grief of his lady: his

is the generous heart,

in pain as in joy.

Do you know

what forgiveness mean? it mean

the world has sinned, the world

must be pardoned --

~ Louise Gluck

____________________________________

Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. And lo, no one was there. ~ Anonymous

Parable Of Faith

Now, in twilight, on the palace steps

the king asks forgiveness of his lady.

He is not

duplicitous; he has tried to be

true to the moment; is there another way of being

true to the self?

The lady

hides her face, somewhat

assisted by the shadows. She weeps

for her past; when one has a secret life,

one's tears are never explained.

Yet gladly would the king bear

the grief of his lady: his

is the generous heart,

in pain as in joy.

Do you know

what forgiveness mean? it mean

the world has sinned, the world

must be pardoned --

~ Louise Gluck

____________________________________

Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. And lo, no one was there. ~ Anonymous