what do you read when you're having a bad day/week/month?

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

Please post your favorite feel-good poems? I'm just in need of something to hold on to/something to get me through this rough week.

An example:

Not Yet
Jane Hirshfield

Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out of the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch –
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned,
not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured, not-yet-

Not-yet-not.

I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay.

Comments

[elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com]

One of my favourites, Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

[teithiwr.livejournal.com]

This is one of my favourite poems in the universe. The final five lines make my heart clutch every time.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started. XD (Also, please tag this post with -request (sorry, being modly when I'mn not a mod!)

------

The Garden of Proserpine - ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 1837–1909

Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.

No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.

Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

"The Sciences Sing a Lullaby" -Albert Goldbarth

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you're tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They'll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren't alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren't alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

-------

Everything is Waiting For You - David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

[bitsofbeauty.livejournal.com]

God Says Yes To Me
Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

[teithiwr.livejournal.com]

Oh this is always such a wonderful pick-me-up!

[bitsofbeauty.livejournal.com]

I IMAGINE THE GODS | Jack Gilbert

I imagine the gods saying, We will
make it up to you. We will give you
three wishes, they say. Let me see
the squirrels again, I tell them.
Let me eat some of the great hog
stuffed and roasted on its giant spit
and put out, steaming, into the winter
of my neighborhood when I was usually
too broke to afford even the hundred grams
I ate so happily walking up the cobbles,
past the Street of the Moon
and the Street of the Birdcage-Makers,
the Street of Silence and the Street
of the Little Pissing. We can give you
wisdom, they say in their rich voices.
Let me go at last to Hugette, I say,
the Algerian student with her huge eyes
who timidly invited me to her room
when I was too young and bewildered
that first year in Paris.
Let me at least fail at my life.
Think, they say patiently, we could
make you famous again. Let me fall
in love one last time, I beg them.
Teach me mortality, frighten me
into the present. Help me to find
the heft of these days. That the nights
will be full enough and my heart feral.

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

I LOVE THIS. Thank you!

[ghostsandlovers.livejournal.com]

I'm unable to post it because I'm using my phone but I always give Antilamentation by Dorianne Laux a look over when I'm feeling a bit down on life.

[wicked-sassy.livejournal.com]

My favorite poem! I will post it for you. :)

"Antilamentation" by Dorianne Laux

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don't regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You've walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering
any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

[bitsofbeauty.livejournal.com]

The Thing Is - Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I was gonna comment with this one too. :)

[bitsofbeauty.livejournal.com]

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT - Derek Mahon

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

[teithiwr.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh.

This is quite amazing.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

I have problems with this poem, but I pretend the last line doesn't exist and I'm fine:

If - Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes Gladness" -Bruce Dawe

Sometimes gladness crooks me like an arm
Adoro te or some more crazy hymn
scrambling like a monkey up a rope
to bang for hours in my soul’s swung bell
that I was born and blessed with the broad thumb
of sheer stupidity and doused unknowing
in such uncertainty I only need
to run my tongue across my lips to taste
the salt of that immersion...

Down the aisle
come all my years, none altogether miserable, none
without the saving grace of some mistake that bent me
in the sly human shape I recognise
- day-labourer slouching in at the ninth hour
to pick up a quick penny Oh ordinary
holiness of people shining out
against the blurred reredos of their dreams!


I never knew a friend who did not leave me
the richer for the knowing, pour them on
- I wait the friends I’ve yet to meet who crowd
like seasons, apt, amenable, beyond
the familiar ambiguity of the hill.

Along each vein like air-bubbles children run
and when the heart bursts suddenly or descends
in swooning spiral to the lonesome ground
and the grasses with their dry blank commentary
are all the cushion one can choose
who knows but what some last
galvanic impulse will upraise the arm
or squeeze the throat to whisper while it can:
‘There is nothing in life as beautiful as life…’?

[twirls.livejournal.com]

Survival Poem 17 (http://properlylost.blogspot.com/2009/07/survival-poem-17-by-marty-mcconnell.html) is a classic, but it doesn't get feel-good til the end.

This is one of my favorites: Frank O'Hara, For Grace, After a Party (http://april-is.tumblr.com/post/87907821/april-22-2007-for-grace-after-a-party-frank-ohara).

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

I love the Frank O'Hara poem! Thank you so much!

[writtenbyhand.livejournal.com]

The Orange
Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all my jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

Something so simple, warm, and lovely <3

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

TS Eliot - The Four Quartets. Always.

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury.
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away-
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing-
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

Beautiful :) Thank you!

[lyryk.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that's such a beautiful poem. I especially like the 'not-yet' parts. Thanks for sharing.

Here's one for you:

Two Countries
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

<3<3 Thank you!

[jillianfish.livejournal.com]

Does it count if it's not really a poem? It can be read as one but it flows better as prose. I thought I'd post it just in case, every little bit helps. :)

"Why me?
Most often, however, the question arises out of far less dramatic circumstances. A month of just one damned thing after another- the accumulation of everlasting paper cuts of daily life, when things break or go wrong or turn sour and we say we just can't win for losing. The scrambled egg of existence lurches out of the frying pan onto the floor. Depressing. Disheartening. Frustrating. Irritating. Maddening. 'Why me?'.
On the other hand. There are those weeks, when the sun shines, an unexpected kindness comes our way, something truly amusing happens and we laugh ourselves silly, we get enough sleep, have sweet dreams. An old friend takes us away for an evening of music, a neighbor leaves a thank-you bottle of champagne in the fridge, a child gives you an unexpected hug, the wisteria suddenly blooms, you find a forgotten photograph of a lovely place and time you will never forget, and, and... the world is 'Yes' instead of 'No.' It's not your birthday but it feels like it- a rebirth of joy on a small scale."
-Robert Fulghum

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

"Rebirth of joy on a small scale." :)

Uplifting, it really is. Thank you :)

[teithiwr.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post. I've been having a bit of a rough time myself, and poetry is a wonderful consolation.

That poem you posted is gorgeous, gorgeous!

Because this post needs more Mary Oliver:


A Settlement

Look, it's spring. And last year's loose dust has turned into this soft willingness. The wind-flowers have come up trembling, slowly the brackens are up-lifting their curvaceous and pale bodies. The thrushes have come home, none less than filled with mystery, sorrow, happiness, music, ambition.

And I am walking out into all of this with nowhere to go and no task undertaken but to turn the pages of this beautiful world over and over, in the world of my mind.

* * *
Therefore, dark past,
I'm about to do it.
I'm about to forgive you

for everything.

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

The last four lines.

OH.

Thank youuu :)

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

People have already posted a few of my favorites above, but here are two more:

Sometimes
by Sheenagh Pugh

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen to you.

And my number-one just-get-through-the-day poem:

Wait
by Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

[tuppeny.livejournal.com]

Oh, the Galway Kinnell poem is lovely. Thanks so much for that. I think I'm going to have to print it out.

There is a Greater Purpose

[rose0mary.livejournal.com]

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want."
It encourages me to realize that there is a God who knows our needs, and brings sufficient to satisfy the day-to-day concerns.

"He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters."
With all that is going on around us, we get so busy doing the important things that we forget to take care of the necessary things. Sometimes we just need to stop and smell the roses, to take a break and look around, count all the blessings and remember what we've already gone through/accomplished.

"He restores my soul.
"He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake."
This passage, reveals yes, there is more to us than just the flesh and bones everyone sees. We have a mental need too, and our emotions, our thoughts, they need recharging too.
Choices come before us every day. Are we going to take the easy route, or the moral one? Why do we choose to do the hard thing and say no to peers, even though 'everybody' is going along? Because it is wrong, because there is a higher calling, because we are accountable for our actions, and because without that inner person standing up and drawing a line in the sand, there is no integrity.

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me."
Yes there will be trials and tribulations.
Yes, there is a spiritual battle being fought all around us.
Yes, people are dying - strangers, friends, family, relatives, the innocent, the pure, the righteous, the murderers, the killers, and even the 'good guys' - death is a fact of life.
Loosing everyone, loosing everything, it is not the end of the road.
We are NOT ALONE! Even though it appears we have been abandoned, that no one hears our cries, that our tears are unseen, that the wounds are hidden and covered, and no one knows our shame, there is still one who sees it all, and wants to take the pain. To take the anger, the anguish, the suffering, and the burden. But we don't let him?

Re: There is a Greater Purpose

[rose0mary.livejournal.com]

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." (cont)
Why don't we let him? Because we may not believe that he is there, not as a witness, but as a supporter. Not as an observer who has no emotional connection, but as a brother, a best friend, a sister, who wants us to talk to him. Do not be afraid to speak out and cry. It does not matter who else hears, because he knows the state of our soul, and is only waiting. Waiting for us to cry his name, ask for forgiveness, and ask for help. Then, he can act and touch us in the deepest, darkest pits of the hell we are in. Then, he can lift us up and give us a peace that surpasses all human understanding.
It starts with belief. Belief in a supernatural God, in a loving creator, who wants only the best for us. This road, is only temporary. The bumps, common. The journey is not decided by the condition of the path, but where we are going.

"Your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
Ever seen a spoiled child that has never been disciplined? An adult who doesn't know what the word 'no' means? Without punishment, these precious innocent babies believe they are the center of the universe, and never learn otherwise. It's painful to correct them here and now, but the future benefits.

"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows."
Some people have all the luck.
Really? Or does it just appear that way.
Take a good look at what you are envying before deciding that is what you want - more than a home that is paid for. More than a family that understands. More than the paycheck. More than the precious mementos, and the ability to sit back and breath.
What are you willing to give up for the latest gadget? The best car, the fancy cloths, the adoring fans. Are you willing to give up the privacy? The moments to yourself? The ability to decide what you want to eat for lunch? Where you will be going? Is the public figure really that important? Are the things that rust, spoil, and tear so valuable? Find what really matters before signing over your life and soul to a credit card company just so you can appear as well off as those who's life you wish you had?

"Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
This world is not everything. It has much to offer, but it is dying, and is cursed. Yes, this planet has life, when all other worlds are barren, and ugly, so alone, and lost, but the physical is never enough.
We are more than just physical components. We think. We feel. We talk. We communicate. We make friends. We remember the dead. We hope for the future. We do not react solely due to physical environment.
We change our world, all the time.
We are physical, yes. But we are also mental beings, spiritual begins (every old culture, EVERY old religion, every ancient world, believed in gods. Today, science has replaced many of the old stories and legends. But the belief in gods was no coincidence. They knew this world was created. Didn't know how, didn't know when, didn't know why, so they made up stories. We still don't, but have discarded the stories and labeled them fables because only the ignorant, the stupid, the dumb, and the savages believe in them. Makes me wonder what drives the folks at NASA and other sites that are trying to rediscover the world).
Physical. Mental. Spiritual. Emotional. Social. Studies have shown that humans need companionship. Why? Because there is a social need that is only filled when we can interact with other humans. Dogs, cats, and other pets can temporarily relieve this innermost need, but only God can completely fulfill it when other humans fall short of the standards and pillars we place them on.

Psalm 23 is where I go when I need something to uplift me. I quoted the NIV, but if the particular wordage didn't work for you, there is over thirty other versions you can search for. Including, but not limited to: KJV, NKJV, Amplified, the Message.

[bitsofbeauty.livejournal.com]

I Am Learning To Abandon The World
by Linda Pastan

I am learning to abandon the world
before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the moon
and snow, closing my shades
against the claims of white.
And the world has taken
my father, my friends.
I have given up melodic lines of hills,
moving to a flat, tuneless landscape.
And every night I give my body up
limb by limb, working upwards
across bone, towards the heart.
But morning comes with small
reprieves of coffee and birdsong.
A tree outside the window
which was simply shadow moments ago
takes back its branches twig
by leafy twig.
And as I take my body bac
k the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap
as if to make amends.

[poppyromanov.livejournal.com]

During troubled times I tend to like me some Hafiz:

To Build A Swing

You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare-
Don’t mix them!

You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
For God.

That sounds
Like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let’s start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering our talented friends.

I will help you
With my divine lyre and drum.

Hafiz
Will sing a thousand words
You can take into your hands,
Like golden saws,
Sliver hammers,

Polished teakwood,
Strong silk rope.

You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix
Them!

In A Tree House

Light
Will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage,

For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown on an ancient fertile plain
You hold the title to.

Love will surely bust you wide open
Into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy

Even if your mind is now
A spoiled mule.

A life giving radiance will come,
The Friend's gratuity will come -

O look again within yourself,
For I know you were once the elegant host
To all the marvels in creation.

From a sacred crevice in your body
A bow rises each night
And shoots your soul into God.

Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One
From the lunar vantage point of love.

He is conducting the affairs
Of the whole universe

While throwing wild parties
In a tree house - on a limb
In your heart.

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Love

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesnt matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.

by Czeslaw Milosz

You do not need many things

My house is buried in the deepest recess of the forest
Every year, ivy vines grow longer than the year before.
Undisturbed by the affairs of the world I live at ease,
Woodmen’s singing rarely reaching me through the trees.
While the sun stays in the sky, I mend my torn clothes
And facing the moon, I read holy texts aloud to myself.
Let me drop a word of advice for believers of my faith.
To enjoy life’s immensity, you do not need many things.

by Ryokan

I Choose the Mountain

The low lands call
I am tempted to answer
They are offering me a free dwelling
Without having to conquer

The massive mountain makes its move
Beckoning me to ascend
A much more difficult path
To get up the slippery bend

I cannot choose both
I have a choice to make
I must be wise
This will determine my fate

I choose, I choose the mountain
With all its stress and strain
Because only by climbing
Can I rise above the plane

I choose the mountain
And I will never stop climbing
I choose the mountain
And I shall forever be ascending

I choose the mountain

by Howard Simon

A Song To Mithras
(Hymn of the 30th Legion: _circa_ A.D. 350.)

Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall!
'Rome is above the Nations, but Thou art over all!'
Now as the names are answered and the guards are marched away,
Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day!

Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat.
Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet.
Now in the ungirt hour--now ere we blink and drowse,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!

Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main--
Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again!
Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!

Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies,
Look on thy children in darkness. Oh take our sacrifice!
Many roads thou hast fashioned--all of them lead to the Light:
Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright!

by Rudyard Kipling

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Try To Praise The Mutilated World

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

by Adam Zagajewski

Magna Est Veritas

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.
For want of me the world's course will not fail:
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

by Coventry Patmore

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted sleep.

by Robert Pinksy

Silence, unmoved and rising

Silence, unmoved and rising,
Silence, unmoved and sheltering,
Silence, unmoved and permanent,
Silence, unmoved and brilliant,
Silence, broad and immense like the Ganga,
Silence, unmoved and increasing,
Silence, white and shining like the Moon,
Silence, the Essence of Siva.

by Civivakkiyar (9th Century)
Translated by Kamil V. Zvelebil

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Murray Dreaming – Stephen Edgar

It's not the sharks
Sliding mere inches from his upturned face
Through warps of water where the tunnel arcs
Transparent overhead,
Their lipless jaws clamped shut, extruding teeth,
Their eyes that stare at nothing, like the dead,
Staring at him; it's not the eerie grace
Of rays he stood beneath,
Gaping at their entranced slow-motion chase

That is unending;
It's not the ultra-auditory hum
Of ET cuttlefish superintending
The iridescent craft
Of their lit selves, as messages were sent,
Turning the sight of him they photographed
To code: it is not this that left him dumb
With schoolboy wonderment
Those hours he wandered the aquarium.

It is that room,
That room of Murray River they had walled
In glass and, deep within the shifting gloom
And subtle drifts of sky
That filtered down, it seemed, from the real day
Of trees and bird light many fathoms high,
The giant Murray cod that was installed
In stillness to delay
All that would pass. The boy stood there enthralled.

Out in the day
Again, he saw the famous streets expound
Their theories about speed, the cars obey,
Racing to catch the sun,
The loud fast-forward crowds, and thought it odd
That in the multitudes not everyone
Should understand as he did the profound
Profession of the cod,
That held time, motionless, unknown to sound.

In bed at night,
Are his eyes open or is this a dream?
The room is all dark water, ghosted light,
And midway to the ceiling
The great fish with its working fins and gills
Suspended, while before it glide the reeling
And see-through scenes of day, faintly agleam,
Until their passage stills
And merges with the deep unmoving stream.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Desiridata - Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

[two-grey-rooms.livejournal.com]

dorianne laux and william stafford seem to be "feel-good" favorites of mine...

"Stealing Sugar from the Castle"
We are poor students who stay after school to study joy.
We are like those birds in the India mountains.
I am a widow whose child is her only joy.

The only thing I hold in my ant-like head
Is the builder's plan of the castle of sugar.
Just to steal one grain of sugar is a joy!

Like a bird, we fly out of darkness into the hall,
Which is lit with singing, then fly out again.
Being shut out of the warm hall is also a joy.

I am a laggard, a loafer, and an idiot. But I love
To read about those who caught one glimpse
Of the Face, and died twenty years later in joy.

I don't mind your saying I will die soon.
Even in the sound of the word soon, I hear
The word you which begins every sentence of joy.

"You're a thief!" the judge said. "Let's see
Your hands!" I showed my callused hands in court.
My sentence was a thousand years of joy.
--Robert Bly


"Starfish"
This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life's way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won't give you smart or brave,
so you'll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.
--Eleanor Lerman


"At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border"
This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed--or were killed--on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.
--William Stafford


"A Story That Could Be True"

If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.

He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by--
you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
"Who are you really, wanderer?"--
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
"Maybe I'm a king."
--William Stafford

[two-grey-rooms.livejournal.com]

"For the Sake of Strangers"
No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy give me directions
so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,
waits patiently for my empty body to pass through.
All day it continues, each kindness
reaching toward another--a stranger
singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees,
offering their blossoms, a retarded child
who lifts his almond eyes and smiles.
Somehow they always find me, seem even
to be waiting, determined to keep me
from myself, from the thing that calls to me
as it must have once called to them--
this temptation to step off the edge
and fall weightless, away from the world.
--Dorianne Laux


"Books"
You're standing on the high school steps,
the double doors swung closed behind you
for the last time, not the last time you'll ever

be damned or praised by your peers, spoken of
in whispers, but the last time you'll lock your locker,
zip up your gym bag, put on your out-of-style jacket,

your too-tight shoes. You're about to be
done with it: the gum, the gossip, the worship
of a boy in the back row, histories of wheat and war,

cheat sheets, tardies, the science of water,
negative numbers and compound fractions.
You don't know it yet but what you'll miss

is the books, heavy and fragrant and frayed,
the pages greasy, almost transparent, thinned
at the edges by hundreds of licked thumbs.

What you'll remember is the dumb joy
of stumbling across a passage so perfect
it drums in your head, drowns out

the teacher and the lunch bell's ring. You've stolen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the library.
Lingering on the steps, you dig into your bag

to touch its heat: stolen goods, willfully taken,
in full knowledge of right and wrong.
You call yourself a thief. There are worse things,

you think, fingering the cover, tracing
the embossed letters like someone blind.
This is all you need as you take your first step

toward the street, joining characters whose lives
might unfold at your touch. You follow them into
the blur of the world. Into whoever you're going to be.
--Dorianne Laux


"Death Comes to Me Again, a Girl"
Death comes to me again, a girl
in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.
It's not so terrible she tells me,
not like you think, all darkness
and silence. There are windchimes
and the smell of lemons, some days
it rains, but more often the air is dry
and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase
built from hair and bone and listen
to the voices of the living. I like it,
she says, shaking the dust from her hair,
especially when they fight, and when they sing.
--Dorianne Laux


"Music in the Morning"
When I think of the years he drank,
the scars on his chin, his thinning hair,
the eye that still weeps decades after the blow, my knees weaken
with gratitude for whatever
kept him safe, whatever stopped
the glass from shattering, sheering
something vital, the fist from lowering,
exploding an artery, pressing
a blood clot toward the back of his brain.
Now he sits calmly on the couch, reading,
refusing to wear the glasses
I bought him, holding the open book
at arm's length from his chest.
Behind him the windows are smoky with mist
and the tile floor is pushing its night chill
up through the bare soles of his feet.
I like to think he survived
in order to find me, in order to arrive here
sober, tired from a long night. Music
on the radio. Coffee. So he could look up
and see me, standing in the kitchen
in his torn T-shirt, its frayed hem
brushing my knees. But I know it's only luck
that delivered him here, luck and a love
that had nothing to do with me. Except
that this is what we sometimes get
if we live long enough. If we are patient
with our lives.
--Dorianne Laux

[starsplashes.livejournal.com]

My heart swells with joy. THANK YOU :)