Poetry And Quotes

[glintofpewter]

Derek,

 

Thanks for posting Larkin and Thomas poems. I don't take to poetry often; it is not my native language. "Faith healing" and "The Hill farmer speaks" were worth the pause.

 

Both seem to be truth tellers

 

Thomas:

I am the farmer stripped of love

And thoughts and grace by the land's hardness;

But what I am saying over the fields'

Desolate acres, rough with dew,

Is, Listen, listen, I am a man like you.

 

Larkin:

An immense slackening ache,

As when, thawing, the rigid landscape weeps,

Spreads slowly through them - that, and the voice above

Saying Dear child,

 

thanks

Dutch

[glintofpewter]

When wrong person uses right means, right means work in wrong way.

 

seems more like a palindrome than a koan

[tariki]

seems more like a palindrome than a koan

 

Dutch,

 

Never sure it was EVER a koan. For some reason, at one time, it was immensely important to me..........now for the life of me I can't remember exactly why!

 

Glad you got something from the poems.

 

All the best

Derek

[JosephM]

Hi Dutch,

 

Good to hear from you again. Perhaps the quote is like works without faith?

 

Joseph

[tariki]

Hi Dutch,

 

Good to hear from you again. Perhaps the quote is like works without faith?

 

Joseph

 

Joseph,

 

Never "heard" it like that before. Yes, you're right, it has that in it....

 

Thanks

Derek

[tariki]

Another by R.S.Thomas, showing his lighter side....

 

Job Davies, eighty-five

Winters old, and still alive

After the slow poison

And treachery of the seasons.

 

Miserable? Kick my arse!

It needs more than the rain's hearse,

Wind-drawn, to pull me off

The great perch of my laugh.

 

What's living but courage?

Paunch full of hot porridge,

Nerves strengthened with tea,

Peat-black, dawn found me

 

Mowing where the grass grew,

Bearded with golden dew.

Rhythm of the long scythe

Kept this tall frame lithe.

 

What to do? Stay green.

Never mind the machine,

Whose fuel is human souls.

Live large man, and dream small.

Edited January 5, 2010 by tariki

[glintofpewter]

Hi Joseph

I'm back in small ways.

 

When wrong person uses right means, right means work in wrong way.

 

Makes me think of an 9-year old making stilts with a power saw and no adult supervision.

[tariki]

Hi Joseph

I'm back in small ways.

 

 

 

Makes me think of an 9-year old making stilts with a power saw and no adult supervision.

 

hey, thats a pretty potent application of the saying, though in a secular context.......visually it would rate an X-certificate.........good grief!

 

[tariki]

Heaven-Haven...A Nun Takes the Veil

 

 

I have desired to go

Where springs not fail,

To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail

And a few lilies blow.

 

And I have asked to be

Where no storms come,

Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,

And out of the swing of the sea. (Gerard Manley Hophins)

 

 

I'm certainly no nun, so I'll never take the veil.........yet just now these words have there appeal

Edited January 7, 2010 by tariki

[glintofpewter]

And I have asked to be

Where no storms come,

 

I'm waiting. Maybe six months.

 

Hopkins brings to mind those schooled echoes. Pick a memory and google the whole poem.

 

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

 

and

 

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

 

A celebration of the sounds of words!

[tariki]

Hopkins certainly had a way with words. Here is Binsey Poplars. The way the words tumble during the first few lines.........and very ecologically relevant, which just goes to show, if we keep strutting our stuff come what may, eventually it all comes around again. Which is what I tell "the wife" when I don, yet again, that old old suit I wore for the wedding......

 

 

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,

Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,

All felled, felled, are all felled;

Of a fresh and following folded rank

Not spared, not one

That dandled a sandalled

Shadow that swam or sank

On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do

When we delve or hew—

Hack and rack the growing green!

Since country is so tender

To touch, her being so slender,

That, like this sleek and seeing ball

But a prick will make no eye at all,

Where we, even where we mean

To mend her we end her,

When we hew or delve:

After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve

Strokes of havoc unselve

The sweet especial scene,

Rural scene, a rural scene,

Sweet especial rural scene.

[tariki]

I was meandering through some old threads on another forum, and saw this. It just seemed appropriate given the drift on some discussions here that I am not allowed to enter.

 

Seeing the Question as separate from the answer is duality

[glintofpewter]

Found this googling. Thought you might like it.

 

Barry Lopez (Arctic Dreams)

 

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

 

dutch

[tariki]

Found this googling. Thought you might like it.

 

Barry Lopez (Arctic Dreams)

 

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

 

dutch

 

Seems to say it like it is. All part of the spirituality of imperfection. How much time can be wasted striving to reach final conclusions, let alone preparing for and anticipating "heaven"........seeking to make outselves "fit" for it!

 

A clearly enlightened person falls in the well. How is this so? (Zen Koan)

 

(Well, I know exactly how an unenlightened person does it...........by having one too many at the local hostelry...)

 

He was in a very bad state, very dark, very bitter, very angry. When asked what was the matter,he said, "Look at me; I've been in this monastery for 38 years, and I have not yet attained pure prayer." And this other fellow was saying how sad he thought this was. Another man present said, "It's a sad story all right, but the sadness consists in the fact that after 38 years in a monastery he's still interested in pure prayer."

[JosephM]

Derek,

 

Similar to your Zen Koan, a man once told me it was more like "falling backwards off a log". To me this signified a 'letting go' rather than a climbing. More of a full trusting in the 'other power' without thought.

 

Just some tidbit stored in my memory department...

Joseph

[tariki]

At Grass by Philip Larkin

 

 

The eye can hardly pick them out

From the cold shade they shelter in,

Till wind distresses tail and main;

Then one crops grass, and moves about

- The other seeming to look on -

And stands anonymous again

 

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps

Two dozen distances surficed

To fable them: faint afternoons

Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,

Whereby their names were artificed

To inlay faded, classic Junes -

 

Silks at the start: against the sky

Numbers and parasols: outside,

Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,

And littered grass : then the long cry

Hanging unhushed till it subside

To stop-press columns on the street.

 

Do memories plague their ears like flies?

They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.

Summer by summer all stole away,

The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -

All but the unmolesting meadows.

Almanacked, their names live; they

 

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,

Or gallop for what must be joy,

And not a fieldglass sees them home,

Or curious stop-watch prophesies:

Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,

With bridles in the evening come.

[jenny]

Thanks for the door being open! It is so nice being welcome...

 

These are my favorite quotes...that nourish me...in fact, I can feel them sink down into my heart....hope they do similar for you!

 

"You cannot train a horse with shouts and expect it to obey a whisper." ~ DD Runes

 

"Integrity has no need of rules." ~ A Camus

 

"If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life." ~ JA Michener

 

"I haven't failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." ~ T Edison

 

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"In our religious striving, we are usually looking for something quite other than the God who has come looking for us." ~ E Peterson

 

"You and I are here to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know." ~ B Russell

 

"The rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage ~~ he has little competition." ~ A Carnegie

 

"So absolutely good is truth, truth never hurts the teller." ~ R Browning

 

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Here are some funnies too...

 

"You should always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours." ~ Y Berra

 

"A cat could very well be man's best friend, but would never stoop to admitting it!" ~ D Larson

 

"If you think it's hard meeting new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball." ~ J Lemmon

 

 

 

Way back on a now defunct Forum someone began a favorite poetry and quotes thread. For me it became a treasury of various bits and pieces. Just thought it could be a good idea here. If you like, just add a few words to explain just how the verses/words have figured in your life..........but this is not obligatory!

 

So the door is open......

[tariki]

Thanks for accepting the invitation and popping through the door......

 

 

 

Derek

[rivanna]

from Frederick Buechner –

 

“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”

 

“You can be sure, whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are. More often than not, God is speaking to you of the mystery of where you have come from and summoning you to where you should go next.”

 

Not sure that last part has been clear to me very often, but I almost always get tears in my eyes when I read the bible.

[minsocal]

Words and images are very powerful. This anti-war video uses the song "The Sounds of Silence":

 

Explosions in the Sky

[jenny]

I think that people in general underestimate the power of words as well! Quotes are others wisdom which many times have been wrought out of suffering, and at the very least life experience...so it would behoove us to pay heed, as maybe it might lead us to the same wise thinking, without the same suffering.

Words and images are very powerful. This anti-war video uses the song "The Sounds of Silence":

 

Explosions in the Sky

[jenny]

Rivanna, I used to think of the Bible as more of a manual of rules...and didn't get emotional reactions unless a verse stuck out at me.~~~~~~~~~~However, I now see the bible a different way entirely. Now, to me it is like my Father has set me on His knee and shares His secrets and wisdom with me...a little at a time. So, now, I do have tears or a feeling of warmness, because I am confident that this is indeed the purpose of scripture,,,,,not to condemn, but to bestow wisdom and understanding. Then if there is something that seems condemning then I know that it is just something else that I need more wisdom and understanding about. :^)

from Frederick Buechner –

 

“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”

 

“You can be sure, whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are. More often than not, God is speaking to you of the mystery of where you have come from and summoning you to where you should go next.”

 

Not sure that last part has been clear to me very often, but I almost always get tears in my eyes when I read the bible.

[Quaker Way]

"And now you are no more your own but Mine;

and I cannot be hid not separated from you:

as you have had me your God

in all your tribulations and sufferings

wherever I did bear you

and your griefs and all your afflictions

in the yearning bowels of my tenderness;

which yet I will break, I will break,

I will break more infinitely open to you,

which shall melt and dissolve you,

and make you stream to me,

as I am in flaming streams of love and life towards you;

I will reach you in your Holes;

Bolts nor bars of brass or iron,

nor walls like mountains shall shut me from you;

but in your Denns and Dungeons I will come in among you

and walk in the midst of you and you shall know

that I am the comforter of your Hearts

and the Rejoycer and Gladdener of your spirits

in all the times of your needs..."

 

Edward Burrough, Quaker, 1673

Spoken to Friends while dying in Newgate Prison, London

[rivanna]

Recently I’ve discovered a British website on poems, wonderful resource--

www.poetryarchive.org

 

Here is a poem by Jacob Sam LaRose--

 

“Faith”

 

A girl in class opts out of speech. A teacher mouths

problems at home and who knows what too-large

or brutal vision stalled the engine of her voice.

 

In a photograph I pass round, a man reels from

a baton to the head and cameras bloom in every hand

to catch his perfect grimace. The challenge is to write about

 

the things that we believe in. The class comes up with

God, by all the usual names, and faith in numbers,

that the News at Ten’s more often bad than good,

 

that some things never change, no matter what

you say, although there’s so much to be said.

A girl carves out a space for her voice to return to.

 

Praise her fierce and stubborn silence. Somewhere,

rain will fall on dry land for the first time in months.

I want to know what her first words will be.

 

------------------------------------

and one by Philip Larkin-

 

“The Trees”

 

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

 

Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too,

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

 

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Edited May 3, 2012 by rivanna

[glintofpewter]

Interesting contrast in the poems. You have posted several Larkin ones I think. I like them. Oh, to begin afresh each season, each day.

 

Dutch