Tag Archives: poetry

When I Am Among the Trees

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image by Rebekah Choat

image by Rebekah Choat

When I Am Among the Trees
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

from the depths of unknowing

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image by Rebekah Choat

image by Rebekah Choat

Keep writing in the dark:
a record of the night, or
words that pulled you from the depths of unknowing,
words that flew through your mind, strange birds
crying their urgency with human voices,

or opened
as flowers of a tree that blooms
only once in a lifetime:

words that may have the power
to make the sun rise again.

~ Denise Levertov

A Tapestry of Words

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Another place I post regularly is All Nine Muses, my lovely friend Kelly Belmonte’s blog.  Here’s my latest contribution to the poetry-driven conversation that takes place there:  http://allninemuses.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/desiderata-as-tapestry/

By the way…

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Some of you might not know that this isn’t the only place I share thoughts; the more bookish posts and reviews can be found on the blog page of my website, http://www.booksbybecka.com.  I reviewed my new favourite book of poetry – Malcolm Guite’s The Singing Bowl, which I’ve mentioned here within the last few days – there this morning.

dawn takes forever…

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photo by Chris Choat

photo by Chris Choat

Dawn takes forever some days.
the sky remains unchanged for hours,
oblivious to the ticking of the clock
growing louder each second.

It’s no use to sit and watch for it.
I know.  I’ve tried.

The best you can do is
go on about your business,
muddle through however you can in the dark,
until you are surprised, dazzled by the light.

~ Rebekah Choat

What stood will stand by Wendell Berry

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photo by Rebekah Choat

photo by Rebekah Choat

What stood will stand, though all be fallen,
The good return that time has stolen.
Though creatures groan in misery,
Their flesh prefigures liberty
To end travail and bring to birth
Their new perfection in new earth.
At word of that enlivening
Let the trees of the woods all sing
And every field rejoice, let praise
Rise up out of the ground like grass.
What stood, whole in every piecemeal
Thing that stood, will stand though all
Fall — field and woods and all in them
Rejoin the primal Sabbath’s hymn.

~ Wendell Berry