To those who are and have gone before – you inspire me
This could be a dream come true,
This could be poetry in motion,
But when it all comes down,
It’s an awful lot to do.
– Hats by Amy Grant
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
– Auguries of Innocence by William Blake
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune-without the words,
And never stops at all.
– Hope by Emily Dickinson
I am the rest between two notes,
which are somehow always in discord
because death’s note wants to climb over,
but in the dark interval, reconciled, they stay there trembling.
… And the song goes on, beautiful.
– Rilke
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
– William Blake
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
– Leonard Cohen
If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet,
how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of.
There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.
– Fred Rogers
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented, fabulous? actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
– Nelson Mandela
“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.
– Mother Teresa
How many hours are there in a mile?
Is yellow square or round?
Probably half the questions we ask-half our great theological and metaphysical problems-are like that.
— C.S. Lewis
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all
– Joni Mitchell
People are like stained glass windows;
they sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed
only if there is a light within
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
The poet lives and writes at the frontier between deep internal experience and the revelations of the outer world. There is no going back for the poet once this frontier has been reached; a new territory is visible and what has been said cannot be unsaid. The discipline of poetry is in overhearing yourself say difficult truths from which it is impossible to retreat. Poetry is a break for freedom. In a sense all poems are good; all poems are an emblem of courage and the attempt to say the unsayable; but only a few are able to speak to something universal yet personal and distinct at the same time; to create a door through which others can walk into what previously seemed unobtainable realms, in the passage of a few short lines.
~ David Whyte
The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone,
but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.
~Kalu Kalu
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
~ W H Auden
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