When it's over, I want tosay: all my lifeI was a bride married toamazement.I was the bridegroom,taking the world into myarms.—Mary Oliver, "When Death Comes"
Category: poetry
Instructions For Living a Life
Instructions for living a life:Pay attention.Be astonished.Tell about it. –Mary Oliver, “Sometimes”
The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman
NYT Haikus
https://twitter.com/nythaikus/status/1305809368760356869?s=20 https://twitter.com/nythaikus/status/1305875054471897088?s=20 https://twitter.com/nythaikus/status/1305918840778502145?s=20 Not all are masterpieces, but there are some gems here.
The Best of Wendell Barry on Orion
"This week we celebrate Wendell Berry’s eighty-sixth birthday by sharing several of our staff’s all-time favorite essays, poems, short stories, and media clips published in Orion over the past four decades."—Orion Staff, "The Best of Wendell Berry." Orion. August 5, 2020.
For the Sake of Strangers by Dorianne Laux
Lovely, one minute poem. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/152177/for-the-sake-of-strangers
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster.Lose something every day.—Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art." Poetry Foundation. 1979.
If Money Grew on Trees
"...I understand that you don’t understand Money don’t grow on trees And if it did, Those trees would grow So far away It would be work to get it " "L'Argent" by Lorenzo Thomas
How to Be Perfect by Ron Padgett | Poetry Foundation
"Be skeptical about all opinions, but try to see some value in each of them."-Ron Padgett, "How to be Perfect." Poetry Foundation. 2013. A collection of life lessons, most are good.
5 ANTI-MANIFESTS — ALIENIST MANIFESTO
...Police-state crematoria...Cyberflesh...Life must be boring before it can be lived...Because language is the most important aspect of death, they taught themselves to amputate in silence...the hallucinated futures of a lunatic...Walt Whitman didn’t kill Che Guevara."5 ANTI-MANIFESTS — ALIENIST MANIFESTO I may not understand the words, but I get your meaning.
Abdiel’s Party
"In my case, I found that my interest was most vividly caught by the meaning of the temptation-and-fall theme. Suppose that the prohibition on the knowledge of good and evil were an expression of jealous cruelty, and the gaining of such knowledge an act of virtue? Suppose the Fall should be celebrated and not deplored? … Continue reading Abdiel’s Party
Just Follow My Example
The number of days since I left the world andEntrusted myself to Heaven is long forgotten.Yesterday, sitting peacefully in the green mountains;This morning, playing with the village children.My robe is full of patches andI cannot remember how long I have had the same bowl for begging.On clear nights I walk with my staff and chant … Continue reading Just Follow My Example
Pity the Feeling
On top of Everest, in my mind,a dark cloud, lightning blasts, a hurricane of controversies, unwindbelow, nonsense sea, fish net casts.The Sherpa is fishing aboutprefers an understanding cartel.Procrustean commodities—easier without a heart, a totalitarian Tinkerbell.Feelings, the repugnant social Other,are the dream within the dream.Before we think, we must feel, brother,a mind | heart alone, cannot reign supreme.
Uncle Walt
"To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown... No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms, ...And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me." —Walt Whitman, "A Song of Joys." Leaves of Grass. h/t Daily Stoic.
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