Samuel Taylor Coleridge – To Nature

It may indeed be phantasy when I Essay to draw from all created things Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings; And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie Lessons of love and earnest piety. So let it be; and if the wide world rings In mock of this belief, it brings Nor …

Rudyard Kipling – The Way Through the Woods

They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Before they planted the trees. It is underneath the coppice and heath, And the thin anemones. Only the keeper sees That, where the ring-dove …

Prayer of St. Francis

This prayer is often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi although that connection is unproven.  It has been used in many forms and has assisted many in their prayerful journey.  Alcoholics Anonymous uses a form of this prayer in recovery work.  We all need this kind of "recovery". Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is …

Mary Oliver – When Death Comes

When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, …

Anna Akhmatova – Everything is Plundered

Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold, Death’s great black wing scrapes the air, Misery gnaws to the bone. Why then do we not despair? By day, from the surrounding woods, cherries blow summer into town; at night the deep transparent skies glitter with new galaxies. And the miraculous comes so close to the ruined, dirty houses …

A.A. Milne – Wind on the Hill

No one can tell me, Nobody knows, Where the wind comes from, Where the wind goes. It’s flying from somewhere As fast as it can, I couldn’t keep up with it, Not if I ran. But if I stopped holding The string of my kite, It would blow with the wind For a day and …

Mary Oliver – What Can We Do About God

what can we do about god, who makes and then breaks every god-forsaken, beautiful day? what can we do about all those graves in the woods, in old pastures in small towns in the bellies of cities? god’s heavy footsteps through the braken through the bog through the dark wood his breath like a swollen river his switch, …

Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, …

Mary Oliver – Wild Geese

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile …

Rumi – I was dead, then alive

I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing. The power of love came into me, and I became fierce like a lion, then tender like the evening star. He said, 'You're not mad enough. You don't belong in this house.' I went wild and had to be tied up. He said, 'Still not wild enough to stay …