weekly reading

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

~Rabindranath Tagore

No classes on Labor Day

Weekly Reading

Birdwings
Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’re bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.
~Rumi

Weekly Reading

Singapore

 In Singapore, in the airport, a darkness was ripped from my eyes.

 In the women’s restroom, one compartment stood open.

 A woman knelt there, washing something in the white bowl.

 Disgust argued in my stomach and I felt, in my pocket, for my ticket.

 A poem should always have birds in it. Kingfishers, say,

 with their bold eyes and gaudy wings.

 Rivers are pleasant, and of course trees.

 A waterfall, or if that’s not possible, a fountain rising and falling.

 A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

When the woman turned I could not answer her face.

 Her beauty and her embarrassment struggled together, and neither could win. 

 She smiled and I smiled. 

What kind of nonsense is this? Everybody needs a job.

Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.

 But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor, which is dull enough.

 She is washing the tops of the airport ashtrays, as big as hubcaps, with a blue rag. 

 Her small hands turn the metal, scrubbing and rinsing.

 She does not work slowly, nor quickly, but like a river. 

 Her dark hair is like the wing of a bird. 

 I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life. 

 And I want her to rise up from the crust and the slop and fly down to the river.

 This probably won’t happen. But maybe it will. 

If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it? 

 Of course, it isn’t. 

 Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only the light that can shine out of a life.

 I mean the way she unfolded and refolded the blue cloth, the way her smile was only for my sake;

 I mean the way this poem is filled with trees, and birds.

~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

"The thought manifests as the word
The word manifests as the deed
The deed develops into habit
Habit hardens into character
So watch the thought and its ways with care
And let it spring out of love
Born out of concern for all beings
As the shadow follows the body as we think, so we become..."

~Buddha

Weekly Reading

Love Poem With Toast

Miller Williams

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.
The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.
With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,
as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.