"With their whole gaze ...."

With their whole gaze

animals behold the Open.

Only our eyes

are as though reversed

and set like traps around us,

keeping us inside.

That there is something out there

we know only from the creatures’ countenance.

We turn even the young child around,

making her look backward

at the forms we create,

not outward into the Open,

which is reflected

in the animals’ eyes ….

Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Eighth Elegy”

"There are no bad pictures ...."

There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.

Abraham Lincoln

"Lord, the air smells good ...."

Lord, the air smells good today, straight from the mysteries

within the inner courts of God.

A grace like new clothes thrown

across the garden, free medicine for everybody.

The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,

the first blue violets kneeling.

Whatever came from Being is caught up in being,

     drunkenly forgetting the way back….

Rumi

"God speaks to each of us ...."

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rainer Maria Rilke

"You only have to let the soft animal ...."

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Mary Oliver