I am sending you love today. I adored the responses to last week’s Soul Thread. Thank you to all who shared so generously!
I love and frequently return to the essential essay Poetry is Not a Luxury by Audre Lorde: “Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”
Similarly, Aimé Césaire wrote that, “Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge.”
Some poems stay in my heart rent-free, and I’d imagine the same is true for some of you.
What’s a poem or a line from a poem that has stayed with you, after all this time? And if you feel called to share, why does it move you so?
"I'd like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding" - John O'Donahue. This poem over and over again reminds me to let go of control.
For me it's "Still I rise" by Maya Angelou🙌🩷The poem speaks to the ups and downs I often experience in my personal life, giving me hope and hyping me up for a better tomorrow.
whenever i revisit this one it makes me cry for the vastness, messiness and beauty of the unfolding of life. how we must to beat on for what seems like forever even when we are in the muckiest of times. a beautiful soul reminder to keep going with awe for the world.
As a writer, I admire Lucille Clifton for her precision in poetry. She's able to get to the heart of something with so few words. But I love every line of this poem and this one especially because as Black women, nothing is given to us. We have to make our own way. We have to build ourselves, our lives, our everything. In a world that values everything we're not, who else is there to be but ourselves?
Ooh and also ‘The Orange’ by Wendy Cope . It’s just a beautiful poem about appreciating little things .
“ 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 the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.”
It always makes me think of the characters in Padma Venkatraman’s gorgeous children’s book ‘The Bridge Home’ about a sibling and her autistic sister running away from home and making their own way in the world. There’s a specific exert of oranges which alway s comes to mind.
“ When, at last, I placed a section in my mouth, I could hear it burst as my teeth met the flesh, squeezing the juice out onto my tongue, tart at first and then sweet. Everything else melted away except for the taste, the smell, the feel of the fruit on my tongue.
I ate the fruit slowly. The way you liked to do things.
Until then, I'd thought it was a sad thing that you were sometimes slower than the rest of us. But that day, I realized that slow can be better than fast. Like magic, you could stretch time out when we needed it, so that a moment felt endless. So the taste of half an orange could last and last. “
Burning Rice by Eileen Chong. I really relate to the pervasive sense of cultural loss living as a mixed Australian and struggling to stay connected to my Indian heritage. This is just the last paragraph.
It keeps me human and sane in a world that wants us to be anything but. I love its ancient wisdom, I come back to the translation I’ve read over and over again. In times of hope, joy, despair, confusion and elation.
From poem by Rashani Rea (The Unbroken) that I discovered at the age of 13. It's a balm for those who are grieving. To this day I'm not sure why I felt such profound sense of loss at that age. I didn't experience any bereavement or major losses. Perhaps I knew what my adult self has only just accepted- that I had lost myself as early as infancy and I was desperate to feel connected to myself again.
"What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare" from Leisure by W.H.Davies..... I honestly had to google the author again, but even though I never remember who wrote it, I always remember the words, and they stay with me especially in these fast paced times.
"I'd like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding" - John O'Donahue. This poem over and over again reminds me to let go of control.
For me it's "Still I rise" by Maya Angelou🙌🩷The poem speaks to the ups and downs I often experience in my personal life, giving me hope and hyping me up for a better tomorrow.
gwendolyn brooks. “green is your color.” i’ve worn something green everyday since
whenever i revisit this one it makes me cry for the vastness, messiness and beauty of the unfolding of life. how we must to beat on for what seems like forever even when we are in the muckiest of times. a beautiful soul reminder to keep going with awe for the world.
"Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says everyone of us is a child,
everyone of us is ancient,
everyone of us has a body.
He says everyone of us is frightened.
He says everyone of us has to find
a way to live with fear.
He says everything is alive–
shells, buildings, people, fish,
mountains, trees, wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
He says it doesn’t matter if you draw,
or write books. It doesn’t matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you."
-Roger Keyes
i really appreciate this one. thank you for sharing!
"born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?"
"Won't You Celebrate with Me" by Lucille Clifton
As a writer, I admire Lucille Clifton for her precision in poetry. She's able to get to the heart of something with so few words. But I love every line of this poem and this one especially because as Black women, nothing is given to us. We have to make our own way. We have to build ourselves, our lives, our everything. In a world that values everything we're not, who else is there to be but ourselves?
Not many poems stick in my mind for long except this one because of its very real accuracy for me rn lol:
“And Then I Tried” by Rene Ricard
And then I tried to put myself at
a distance from the subject, but the
distance was just another
angle on the same subject and
it was always the same subject, you.
Ooh and also ‘The Orange’ by Wendy Cope . It’s just a beautiful poem about appreciating little things .
“ 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 the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.”
It always makes me think of the characters in Padma Venkatraman’s gorgeous children’s book ‘The Bridge Home’ about a sibling and her autistic sister running away from home and making their own way in the world. There’s a specific exert of oranges which alway s comes to mind.
“ When, at last, I placed a section in my mouth, I could hear it burst as my teeth met the flesh, squeezing the juice out onto my tongue, tart at first and then sweet. Everything else melted away except for the taste, the smell, the feel of the fruit on my tongue.
I ate the fruit slowly. The way you liked to do things.
Until then, I'd thought it was a sad thing that you were sometimes slower than the rest of us. But that day, I realized that slow can be better than fast. Like magic, you could stretch time out when we needed it, so that a moment felt endless. So the taste of half an orange could last and last. “
Above the mountains
the geese turn
into the light again
- David Whyte
I love this. David Whyte's "Enough" was the first poem that came to mind for me.
"Enough
These few words are enough
If not these words, this breath
If not this breath, this sitting here
This opening to the life
we have refused
Again and again
Until now
Until now"
Burning Rice by Eileen Chong. I really relate to the pervasive sense of cultural loss living as a mixed Australian and struggling to stay connected to my Indian heritage. This is just the last paragraph.
“each dark grain into pearly white. I’d forgotten
that brown rice needed more than double
the usual measure of water. I smelt the charring,
then saw: scorched rice like black gold,
my ancestors’ ashes in a bowl.”
this is beautiful. im also mixed, indian and australian. sweet words.
The Guest house by Rumi!
It keeps me human and sane in a world that wants us to be anything but. I love its ancient wisdom, I come back to the translation I’ve read over and over again. In times of hope, joy, despair, confusion and elation.
"There is a brokenness
Out of which comes the unbroken
A shatteredness
Out of which blooms the unshaterable."
From poem by Rashani Rea (The Unbroken) that I discovered at the age of 13. It's a balm for those who are grieving. To this day I'm not sure why I felt such profound sense of loss at that age. I didn't experience any bereavement or major losses. Perhaps I knew what my adult self has only just accepted- that I had lost myself as early as infancy and I was desperate to feel connected to myself again.
“But could you play a nocturne on a flute of drainpipes?” -Vladimir Mayakovsky
we real cool by gwendolyn brooks. could probably recite it from memory.
warsan shire's poetry has always stuck with me, so here are a couple lines:
"At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from.
Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before." and also...
"you think I'll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I'll swallow you whole."
I Don’t Want to Be Demure or Respectable by Mary Oliver
I Don’t Want to Be Demure or Respectable
I don’t want to be demure or respectable.
I was that way, asleep, for years.
That way, you forget too many important things.
How the little stones, even if you can’t hear them, are singing.
How the river can’t wait to get to the ocean and the sky, it’s been there before.
What traveling is that!
It is a joy to imagine such distances.
I could skip sleep for the next hundred years.
There is a fire in the lashes of my eyes.
It doesn’t matter where I am, it could be a small room.
The glimmer of gold Böhme saw on the kitchen pot
was missed by everyone else in the house.
Maybe the fire in my lashes is a reflection of that.
Why do I have so many thoughts, they are driving me crazy.
Why am I always going anywhere, instead of somewhere?
Listen to me or not, it hardly matters.
I’m not trying to be wise, that would be foolish.
I’m just chattering.
'Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.' - Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
I chose a different path than my family before me, getting out of survival mode and victim mindset.
It's been absolutely terrifying at times, I have done most of it alone, and wow--has it made all the difference. :)
“You darkness, of whom I am born—
I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illumines
and excludes all the rest.
But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations—just as they are.
It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.
I believe in the night.”
~Rainer Rilke, The Book of Monastic Life, 1.11
a snippet from kahlil gibran:
"Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror."
"What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare" from Leisure by W.H.Davies..... I honestly had to google the author again, but even though I never remember who wrote it, I always remember the words, and they stay with me especially in these fast paced times.