So much yes here for me! I am not suggesting anything here – but there’s stoicism here, and zen – and I have learned so much there, in the darkest hours of my being I hope to remember these teaching! I never want to shy away from grief and my loneliness, but my sweet Mary is also reminding me that how little I am, and how grand the existence is. Also, if feel like when I am sad, I feel like I forget that whoever I am about to unload my sorrow on may be sad or be dealing with some personal drama too — it is hard to remember that sometimes “the world doesn’t need that” – human all too human – I was reading this poem in a cafe yesterday, Rilke was there too flirting with Lou Salomé. I heard him say “Don’t fear the pain, let it’s weight fall back into the earth” — How timely I thought — Oh poets… and how this poem found me is another story! find me in the streets, we’ll get a drink and I’ll tell you the story!
Here’s to realization, here’s to deepest corners of our soul, here’s the the stone-hard beauty that can take us and more!
Mary Oliver
The Poet with His Face in His Hands
You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn’t need anymore of that sound.
So if you’re going to do it and can’t
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t
hold it in, at least go by yourself across
the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets
like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you
want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.
One Poem At A Time 