Tag: poetry

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. Earlier this week, when I was driving and listening to my playlist, a song came on that I hadn’t listened to in a long while. It is so soulful and deep and beautiful and when I got home, I wrote on the calendar that this song is a perfect one for a Sunday post. Sean Rowe wrote this song for his son, speaking of the fervent need for people to leave something of timeless meaning to this world before departing it. Sean is a folk singer, whose style is similar to Bob Dylan’s style. Here are the beautiful, poetic lyrics to “To Leave Something Behind” by Sean Rowe:

I cannot say that I know you well
But you can’t lie to me with all these books that you sell
I’m not trying to follow you to the end of the world
I’m just trying to leave something behind

Words have come from men and mouse
Oh, but I can’t help thinking that I have heard the wrong crowd
When all the water is gone my job will be too
So I’m trying to leave something behind

Oh, money is free but love costs more than our bread
And the ceiling is hard to reach
Oh, the future ahead is broken and red
And I’m trying to leave something behind

This whole world is a foreign land
We swallow the moon, but we do not know our own hand
Oh, we’re running with the case, but we ain’t got the gold
Yet we’re trying to leave something behind

My friends, I believe we are at the wrong fight
And I cannot read what I did not write
I’ve been to his house, but the master is gone
Yet we’re trying to leave something behind

Now there is a beast who has taken my brain
You can put me to bed, but you can’t feel my pain
When the machine has taken the soul from the man
It’s time to leave something behind

Oh, money is free but love costs more than our bread
And the ceiling is hard to reach
Oh, the future ahead is already dead
And it’s time to leave something behind

Now, I’ve got this feeling that I’m still at the shore
And pockets don’t know what it means to be poor
I can get through the wall if you give me a door
So I can leave something behind

Oh, wisdom is lost in the trees somewhere
Oh, you’re not gonna find it in some mental gray hair
It’s locked up from those who hurry ahead
And it’s time to leave something behind

Oh, money is free but love costs more than our bread
And the ceiling is hard to reach
When my son is a man, he will know what I meant

When I was just trying to leave something behind
And I’m trying to leave something behind

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning. I am getting a late start this morning. I’m meandering today. I’ve been easily distracted and I think that is a good way to be, on a gentle Sunday Morning. Sundays = Poetry Day on the Blog. PD on the B. You know me. Rap and Hip Hop are full of good poetry. If traditional poetry isn’t your thing, look up the lyrics of some of your favorite Hip Hop songs. Mastery. Genius, really.

If you are into traditional poetry, Walt Whitman is considered to be one of America’s foremost poets. Perhaps his most famous poem is “Song of Myself”. Here is just one small part of this epic poem:

“Not I, not anyone else can travel that road for you.

You must travel it by yourself.

It is not far. It is within reach.

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,

Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.”

Write a poem to yourself about the song of yourself. Write a poem about your unique journey on the road of your life. You won’t regret it. You’ll get to know yourself even better and isn’t that where “the road” is supposed to lead anyway?

“If I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room, would you trust it?” Kendrick Lamar – Poetic Justice

“You know it’s funny when it rains it pours, they got money for wars but can’t feed the poor.” 2Pac – Keep Ya Head Up

“I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” Jay-Z – Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)

“I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death.” Nas – NY State of Mind

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning. My regular readers know that I devote Sundays to poetry on the blog. I don’t have a poem today. I don’t have a poem in any way. I’m not sharing one I wrote. But what I have, is wrote in quote. Poets don’t always write in rhyme – for that, they don’t always have the time. Sometimes poets just really have wise things to say, and so that is what I am sharing with you today.

“I have never started a poem whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.” – Robert Frost

“Poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings.” – W. H. Auden

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” – Emily Dickinson

“A picture is a poem without words.” – Horace

“Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.” – Plato

“If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.” – Seamus Heaney

“A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.” – Wallace Stevens

“To have great poets, there must be great audiences.” – Walt Whitman

Thank you for being my great audience, readers. I love you. Have a blessed, poetic Sunday. <3 (Write a poem. Discover the ending. Make sense of your mixed feelings. Blow your own mind, or perhaps just take a photo and see the poetry in it. Find the vital truth that only your deepest inwardness knows. Fall in love with yourself through your words. You are a great poet, even if the only audience is yourself. <3 )

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning. Our intuitions have served us well. I am waking up in the only room left available in a fabulous, old inn listed on the National Historic Register. The hotel is in one of those towns that feels like it has always been home – one of those comfortable, feel good places, which in some ways feels like it has somehow always been a part of me, even though I have never been here before. I love this serendipitous feeling.

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Atticus says it best:

Here is my poem for day. Take a moment today in which all you do is feel. Write a poem.

“The Well Beaten Path Back To Me”

I did not know where I was going so I let my soul take the wheel.

And it steered itself to where it could best be refilled, renewed and restored.

My soul always knows the way.

It has the wisdom of the sun and the stars and the knowledge that beats my heart.

Serendipity leads to serenity.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning. My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry says things like no other form writing can. It evokes imagery, emotion, and thoughtfulness and it reminds us of our inner wisdom and power. I found a collection of excellent famous poems about the strength of women to share on the blog this morning. I think that this is apropos for this time period in history, don’t you? My belief is that our biggest superpower which all of we women possess is that we are continually underestimated. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

“We don’t dare to appreciate her
We don’t care to her feelings,
Nor her dreams.
She swallows her pride
To serve us might.” – Penpal

“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.” – Maya Angelou

“But there’s wisdom in women, of more than they have known,
And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own.” -Rupert Brooke

poem by Nikita Gill

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Happy Father’s Day!! It was so interesting raising our four children, together with my husband. There are many times when I watched my husband in awe. I would think, (perhaps with a little bit of competitive chagrin) “Oh, wow, he handled that so much better than I did.” There is no doubt in any of our minds that my husband is entirely devoted to our family. We are his purpose and his passion and for that, I am forever grateful.

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry speaks in the movement of spirit. In many ways, poetry is otherworldly. It offers portals into other unseen places. My son is taking a Stress Management course this summer (a course required by his university’s business management program. This is good progress.) Yesterday, my son had to color a mandala, as an assignment for the class. Now coloring and art has never been his forte, and so when he showed his finished assignment, he was poking fun at some of his color choices and coloring outside of the lines. I reminded him that coloring the mandala was never about the end result, but more so about the mindfulness of doing the project, and the relaxation that this would bring. This is the same with writing poetry. It requires concentration and diving deep. The end result really isn’t all that important. Poems that speak to me, might not speak to you. But the poets, when writing the poems, spoke to themselves, from the depths of their own souls and from the wilds of their own imaginations, and time stood still for them. Listen to your wild soul today. Write down the poem and hear what it has to say to you. Here is my poem for the day:

You are the best gift which I ever gave to our children

Your steadfastness, your devotion, your selflessness,

Allowed me to build a soft nest on a solid, steady, rock,

That remained unbroken and safe, even in the worst of storms.

Your strong arms held us steadfast through it all,

And I never questioned that they wouldn’t.

I have loved your strong arms, since they first held me.

And I can think of no better arms to hold tight our family.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Please use today to soothe your soul, to reset your batteries, to clean the windows to your perspectives, and to fill your heart with gratitude. That’s what Sundays are really good for – the “re-words” such as rejuvenation, reinvigoration, renewal, revitalization, refreshment, and restoration. All of these words suggest “making new”. Use Sunday to make new of what is old and tired and clouded and fading in you. ReSunday yourself. It will be a lovely way to start the week.

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry is mysterious, intimate, clever and open. Write some poetry today to help ReSunday yourself. You won’t regret it. Here is my poem for today:

“I Am A Witness“

I am old enough to have been a witness to a lot of things.

Perhaps this is the truest gift which our aging brings.

I am a witness to so much triumph over hurt and loss.

I am a witness to the intricate, such as a large rock covered in moss.

I am a witness to breathtaking natural beauty, day after day.

When I allow myself the time to watch the miraculous display.

I am witness to all of my own sensations,

I am witness to my feelings and frustrations.

I am the witness who feverishly writes it all down,

As my hair is graying, from its once rich brown.

It’s the witnesses who bring clarity to what has gone on,

Facts and perspectives, mixed and weighed upon.

So much time we play at being judge, jury and litigators,

When in truth, we are mostly natural witnesses and mitigators.

I am a watcher. I am a witness. I hear. I feel. I see.

Please share what you witness with yourself, and with me.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

My husband came home from an important business trip on Friday. Our family’s schedule has been so clogged up. This week the calendar is finally starting to look like the days will flow into something a little more clear, manageable, and sensible. My husband said to me this morning that he hopes that it’s a rainy day today. There is something about rainy days that insist on your relaxation like no other kind of day. It appears quite sunny out right now, but there’s always hope for later in the day. As Sunday is devoted to poetry on the blog, this is one of the best poems ever written about rain:

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

My blog is devoted to poetry on Sundays. Poetry has a way of penetrating one’s emotions like no other form of communication. I read this poem, which I am going to share below, the day after the Texas elementary school shooting massacre. When I looked for a good copy of it to share today on the blog, I found it in the form of a Ted Talk. I can think of no better poem to share today than The Opposites Game by Brendan Constantine:

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning, readers. Today is poetry day on the blog. It’s always fun to play with words and that is what poetry is – just playing with words. When our children are little, and they are trying to communicate, we often say to them, “Use your words.” Today I say, “Play with your words.” Here is what came out of my own word play today (Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!! Stay in the moment and savor it all.):

When you were my baby girl, I fondly gazed at your tiny toes,

And when you were a little girl, I dressed you up in bows.

When you were in middle school, I soothed your highs and lows,

And when you were in high school, we loved shopping for your clothes,

Watching you graduate yesterday, my face glows and my heart grows,

You are a golden girl who will have a wonderful life, this your mother knows.