If sometimes I say that flowers smile

Source: Favimages

If sometimes I say that flowers smile
And if I should say that rivers sing,
It’s not because I think there are smiles in flowers
And songs in the rivers’ flowing…
It’s so I can help misguided men
Feel the truly real existence of flowers and rivers.

Since I write for them to read me, I sometimes stoop
To the stupidity of their senses…
It isn’t right, but I excuse myself,
Because I’ve only taken on this odious role, an interpreter of Nature,
Because there are men who don’t grasp its language,
Which is no language at all.

~ Alberto Caeiro (Fernando Pessoa)

If sometimes I say that flowers smile

Source: Favimages

If sometimes I say that flowers smile
And if I should say that rivers sing,
It’s not because I think there are smiles in flowers
And songs in the rivers’ flowing…
It’s so I can help misguided men
Feel the truly real existence of flowers and rivers.

Since I write for them to read me, I sometimes stoop
To the stupidity of their senses…
It isn’t right, but I excuse myself,
Because I’ve only taken on this odious role, an interpreter of Nature,
Because there are men who don’t grasp its language,
Which is no language at all.

~ Alberto Caeiro (Fernando Pessoa)

Anyone Can Sing

Source: Community of Mindful Parents

Anyone can sing. You just open your mouth,
and give shape to a sound. Anyone can sing.
What is harder, is to proclaim the soul,
to initiate a wild and necessary deepening:
to give the voice broad, sonorous wings
of solitude, grief, and celebration,
to fill the body with the echoes of voices
lost long ago to bravery, and silence,
to prise the reluctant heart wide open,
to witness defeat, to suffer contempt,
to shrink, lose face, go down in ignominy,
to retreat to the last dark hiding-place
where the tattered remnants of your pride
still gather themselves around your nakedness,
to know these rags as your only protection
and yet still open - to face the possibility
that your innermost core may hold nothing at all,
and to sing from that - to fill the void
with every hurt, every harm, every hard-won joy
that staves off death yet honours its coming,
to sing both full and utterly empty,
alone and conjoined, exiled and at home,
to sing what people feel most keenly
yet never acknowledge until you sing it.
Anyone can sing. Yes. Anyone can sing.

~ William Ayot

Anyone Can Sing

Source: Community of Mindful Parents

Anyone can sing. You just open your mouth,
and give shape to a sound. Anyone can sing.
What is harder, is to proclaim the soul,
to initiate a wild and necessary deepening:
to give the voice broad, sonorous wings
of solitude, grief, and celebration,
to fill the body with the echoes of voices
lost long ago to bravery, and silence,
to prise the reluctant heart wide open,
to witness defeat, to suffer contempt,
to shrink, lose face, go down in ignominy,
to retreat to the last dark hiding-place
where the tattered remnants of your pride
still gather themselves around your nakedness,
to know these rags as your only protection
and yet still open - to face the possibility
that your innermost core may hold nothing at all,
and to sing from that - to fill the void
with every hurt, every harm, every hard-won joy
that staves off death yet honours its coming,
to sing both full and utterly empty,
alone and conjoined, exiled and at home,
to sing what people feel most keenly
yet never acknowledge until you sing it.
Anyone can sing. Yes. Anyone can sing.

~ William Ayot

Query

Credit: Beni Hassan

I asked the birds
who sing at night
where they learned their songs,
and what they sang about.

They said, "We learn from
birds who sing by day,
but what we sing about
is hard for us to say."

"Only those with beak
and wing can fathom joy
in dark and doubt.
The sky may turn to evening
and the sun to moon,
but we sing
of what you do not speak -
how night is sometimes noon,
how any season of the soul
can, with time, be coaxed to spring."

~ Jean Burden

Query

Credit: Beni Hassan

I asked the birds
who sing at night
where they learned their songs,
and what they sang about.

They said, "We learn from
birds who sing by day,
but what we sing about
is hard for us to say."

"Only those with beak
and wing can fathom joy
in dark and doubt.
The sky may turn to evening
and the sun to moon,
but we sing
of what you do not speak -
how night is sometimes noon,
how any season of the soul
can, with time, be coaxed to spring."

~ Jean Burden

Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley in Heaven

They call each other “E”. Elvis picks

wildflowers near the river and brings

them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him.

In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports

Levis and western blouses with rhinestones.

Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers

and T-shirts, a letterman’s jacket from Tupelo High.

They take long walks and often hold hands.

She prefers they remain just friends. Forever.

Emily’s poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs,

Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard

Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile.

Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon

he will play guitar and sing “I Taste a Liquor

Never Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.”

Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone

in their cabins later, they’ll listen to the river

and nap. They will not think of Amherst

or Las Vegas. They know why God made them

roommates. It’s because America

was their hometown. It’s because

God is a thing without

feathers. It’s because

God wears blue suede shoes.

~ Hans Ostrom

Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley in Heaven

They call each other “E”. Elvis picks

wildflowers near the river and brings

them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him.

In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports

Levis and western blouses with rhinestones.

Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers

and T-shirts, a letterman’s jacket from Tupelo High.

They take long walks and often hold hands.

She prefers they remain just friends. Forever.

Emily’s poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs,

Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard

Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile.

Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon

he will play guitar and sing “I Taste a Liquor

Never Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.”

Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone

in their cabins later, they’ll listen to the river

and nap. They will not think of Amherst

or Las Vegas. They know why God made them

roommates. It’s because America

was their hometown. It’s because

God is a thing without

feathers. It’s because

God wears blue suede shoes.

~ Hans Ostrom