Francesca by Ezra Pound

flower hands, originally uploaded by mrta.

You came in out of the night
And there were flowers in your hands,
Now you will come out of a confusion of people,
Out of a turmoil of speech about you.

I who have seen you amid the primal things
Was angry when they spoke your name
In ordinary places.
I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,
And that the world should dry as a dead leaf,
Or as a dandelion seed-pod and be swept away,
So that I might find you again,
Alone.

Hope

Hope, originally uploaded by ART NAHPRO.

Remote

Remote, originally uploaded by State Of Mind.

Autumn

Fall in the Eastern Sierra, originally uploaded by mlog.

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Hail To The Spirit

Windpower 2, Altamont Pass, California, originally uploaded by colorstalker.

"hail to the spirit that can unite us
for we really live only in figures
and the clocks
with little steps
totter along side our actual days

without ever knowing our true place
we connect ourselves to what's genuine
antennae grope towards antennae
carried by the empty distance.

pure tension. o, music of forces!
could our venial doings deflect what might otherwise disturb you?

the farmer can labour and fuss
but down in the ground, beyond his reach, where
the seed is changing to summer
the earth pours out"

Rainer Maria Rilke

i am a little church(no great cathedral)

Church at Núpsstaður, originally uploaded by bods.

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
--i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
--i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

ee cummings

Life Is But A Game

, originally uploaded by Paula Wirth.

Lee-la, Lee-la, this life is but a game
winners lose, and losers win, the game
is still the same.

Lee-la, Lee-la, this life is but a play
Those who say they know, don't know
And those who know, don't say.

-Billy Schwarts
(Sung to a Nepalese fiddle tune)

The Serenity Prayer

another time, another place, originally uploaded by javajive.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr