Reflection for April 28, 2010

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the

hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned

With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and

curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not

approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the

world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay From Collected Poems

Reflection for April 21, 2010

I have arrived.

I am home

in the here and now.

I am solid.

I am free.

In the ultimate

I dwell.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Long Road Turns to Joy

Reflection for April 14, 2010

Do you have hope for the future?

Someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.

Yes, and even for the past, he replied,

That it will turn out to have been all right

For what it was, something we can accept,

Mistakes made by the selves we had to be,

Not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,

Or what looking back half the time it seems

We could so easily have been, or ought . . .

The future, yes, and even for the past,

That it will become something we can bear,

And I too, and my children, so I hope,

Will recall as not too heavy the tug

Of those albatrosses I sadly placed

Upon their tender necks. Hope for the past,

Yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage

And it brings strange peace that itself passes

Into past, easier to bear because

You said it, rather casually, as snow

Went on falling in Vermont years ago.

“Thanks, Robert Frost” by David Ray

in Poet’s Choice, edited by George Murphy

Reflection for April 7, 2010

Northwest Indian

Memorial on Death

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there.

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glint on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the autumn rain.

When you awake in the morning hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of birds circling in flight.

I am the stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there.

I do not sleep.

-- author unknown