The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry (poem)

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

First Lesson - Philip Booth (poem)

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

Thank You Prayer (poem)

Thankful

To be hammered thin

Seemingly brittle

But strong enough

To bridge the gaps

Between strengths

Shading a space

For rest

Let me tell you about my marvelous god - Susan Stewart (poem)

Let me tell you about my marvelous god, how he hides in the hexagons
of the bees, how the drought that wrings its leather hands
above the world is of his making, as well as the rain in the quiet minutes
that leave only thoughts of rain.
An atom is working and working, an atom is working in deepest
night, then bursting like the farthest star; it is far
smaller than a pinprick, far smaller than a zero and it has no
will, no will toward us.
This is why the heart has paced and paced,
will pace and pace across the field where yarrow
was and now is dust. A leaf catches
in a bone. The burrow’s shut by a tumbled clod
and the roots, upturned, are hot to the touch.
How my god is a feathered and whirling thing; you will singe your arm
when you pluck him from the air,
when you pluck him from that sky
where grieving swirls, and you will burn again
throwing him back.

Life is Beautiful - Dorianne Laux (poem)

 

        and remote, and useful,
if only to itself. Take the fly, angel
of the ordinary house, laying its bright
eggs on the trash, pressing each jewel out
delicately along a crust of buttered toast.
Bagged, the whole mess travels to the nearest
dump where other flies have gathered, singing
over stained newsprint and reeking
fruit. Rapt on air they execute an intricate
ballet above the clashing pirouettes
of heavy machinery. They hum with life.
While inside rumpled sacks pure white
maggots writhe and spiral from a rip,
a tear-shaped hole that drools and drips
a living froth onto the buried earth.
The warm days pass, gulls scree and pitch,
rats manage the crevices, feral cats abandon
their litters for a morsel of torn fur, stranded
dogs roam open fields, sniff the fragrant edges,
a tossed lacework of bones and shredded flesh.
And the maggots tumble at the center, ripening,
husks membrane-thin, embryos darkening
and shifting within, wings curled and wet,
the open air pungent and ready to receive them
in their fecund iridescence. And so, of our homely hosts,
a bag of jewels is born again into the world. Come, lost
children of the sun-drenched kitchen, your parents
soundly sleep along the windowsill, content,
wings at rest, nestled in against the warm glass.
Everywhere the good life oozes from the useless
waste we make when we create—our streets teem
with human young, rafts of pigeons streaming
over the squirrel-burdened trees. If there is
a purpose, maybe there are too many of us
to see it, though we can, from a distance,
hear the dull thrum of generation's industry,
feel its fleshly wheel churn the fire inside us, pushing
the world forward toward its ragged edge, rushing
like a swollen river into multitude and rank disorder.
Such abundance. We are gorged, engorging, and gorgeous.

Nikki Rosa - Nikki Giovanni (poem)

Childhood remembrances are always a drag

If you're Black
You always remember things like living in Woodlawn
With no inside toilet
And if you become famous or something
They never talk about how happy you were to have
Your mother
All to yourself and
How good the water felt when you got your bath
From one of those
Big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in
And somehow when you talk about home
It never gets across how much you
Understood their feelings
As the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale
And even though you remember
Your biographers never understand
Your father's pain as he sells his stock
And another dream goes
And though you're poor it isn't poverty that
Concerns you
And though they fought a lot
It isn't your father's drinking that makes any difference
But only that everybody is together and you
And your sister have happy birthdays and very good
Christmases
And I really hope no white person ever has cause
To write about me
Because they never understand
Black love is Black wealth and they'll
Probably talk about my hard childhood
And never understand that
All the while I was quite happy

often brown feels like "but" - Vivek Shraya (poem)

conjunction

1. used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned

2. used to indicate the impossibility of anything other than what is being stated

3. used to introduce a response expressing a feeling such as surprise or anger

preposition

1. except; apart from; other than

adverb

1. no more than; only

noun

1. an argument against something; an objection

Help Me Prayer

Help me still the vertigo of my thoughts

Help me look up 

reset my altimeter

adjust my attitude indicator 

that I may know

rather than panic

about where I am relative to the bigger picture

Help me recognize changes and react with grace

enjoy banking to the left or right

before settling to center

oriented

once again

to the horizon's glow.

5 Types of Prayer

 The Rev. Bob LaVallee says there are only 5 prayers, which are also types of religious experiences:

• Wow
• Thanks
• I'm sorry
• Help me
• Help someone else

Remember to take a moment when we feel these things to give them space, a breath, to center ourselves in that feeling and branch out, reach out, send out to others, and connect with the "something more" of which we are a part but do not control.

Because being grounded does not mean being more in control, just more gracious and flexible and resilient and loving.