Bogwitch

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

— from The Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran

17 April 2012 • poetry literature

Good Friday

sarahneff:

Jesus Christ, Son of

the living God, have mercy

on me, a sinner.

6 April 2012 • reblog: sarahneff • poetry Christianity

allthingseurope:

Loch Ard, Scotland (by ouldm01)

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
‘Tis the seal, despair, -
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
On the look of death.

- Emily Dickinson

(via outdoorsanctuaries)

7 February 2012 • reblog: allthingseurope • poetry Scotland nature light

writing in the dust: Wislawa Szymborska, "Under One Small Star"

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all.
Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don’t pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man.
I know I won’t be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

This explains something I’ve mostly not known how to say.

3 February 2012 • reblog: wesleyhill • poetry

recycled soul: godthings: “The Japanese haiku poets understand perhaps as fully as...

okigetit:

godthings:

“Our lives are lived in relationship to words, written and spoken, sacred and mundane. They are manna for the journey. As embodied beings we take our whole bodies with us into the act of reading, which, at its best, is spacious, full-bodied, wholehearted, and infused with the breath of life.”

— Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies (via bookofwriting)

(Source: invisibleforeigner)

29 January 2012 • reblog: invisibleforeigner • poetry literature

Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.

— Joss Whedon (via misswallflower)

(via tobeginwhereiam)

27 January 2012 • reblog: misswallflower • Joss Whedon art literature poetry film television

…Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?…

—

excerpted from
okigetit: recycled soul: “Nativity” by John Donne

(n.b. pity = compassion, love from one high for one lowly)

25 December 2011 • reblog: recycledsoul • poetry Christianity

EVERYTHING IS DEEPLY INTERTWINGLED.

— Ted Nelson, via, via (via lukescommonplacebook)

11 October 2011 • reblog: lukescommonplacebook • humor language poetry

Wesley Hill on "politics and leadership and poetry and Christianity -- you know, all the stuff you normally think of as going together"

swordgirl:

This is a helpful reminder of ~~why~~ one reason we study literature. Brings out the contrast of wisdom vs. knowledge. I think I’ll put this on my office door.

‘“We tend to think we learn things so that we can take control, so we can step out and do something, rather than learning it and just living with it. But the people I know who behave really wisely are not that calculating. I think they’re kind of intuitive; they make decisions more from a kind of grounding in thoughtfulness.” They believe, in other words, that while reading fiction may not help you know exactly what to say in the Oval Office the next day, it may help form you to be the kind of leader who could discern what to say and do when the moment of testing comes.”

(Source: wesleyhill)

11 October 2011 • reblog: wesleyhill • literature poetry