tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26537699081283703862024-02-20T15:44:58.728-05:00Poems and their Musicin conversationManuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-63288950011425852412017-12-21T09:41:00.000-05:002017-12-21T09:41:39.346-05:00Sometimes a wild god, by Tom Hirons<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kLp_Hh6DKWc?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Edvard Grieg - In the Hall of the Mountain King, Peer Gynt</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.<br />He is awkward and does not know the ways<br />Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.<br />His voice makes vinegar from wine.<br />When the wild god arrives at the door,<br />You will probably fear him.<br />He reminds you of something dark<br />That you might have dreamt,<br />Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.<br /><br />He will not ring the doorbell;<br />Instead he scrapes with his fingers<br />Leaving blood on the paintwork,<br />Though primroses grow<br />In circles round his feet.<br /><br />You do not want to let him in.<br />You are very busy.<br />It is late, or early, and besides…<br />You cannot look at him straight<br />Because he makes you want to cry.<br /><br />The dog barks.<br />The wild god smiles,<br />Holds out his hand.<br />The dog licks his wounds<br />And leads him inside.<br /><br />The wild god stands in your kitchen.<br />Ivy is taking over your sideboard;<br />Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades<br />And wrens have begun to sing<br />An old song in the mouth of your kettle.<br /><br />‘I haven’t much,’ you say<br />And give him the worst of your food.<br />He sits at the table, bleeding.<br />He coughs up foxes.<br />There are otters in his eyes.<br /><br />When your wife calls down,<br />You close the door and<br />Tell her it’s fine.<br />You will not let her see<br />The strange guest at your table.<br /><br />The wild god asks for whiskey<br />And you pour a glass for him,<br />Then a glass for yourself.<br />Three snakes are beginning to nest<br />In your voicebox. You cough.<br /><br />Oh, limitless space.<br />Oh, eternal mystery.<br />Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.<br />Oh, miracle of life.<br />Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.<br /><br />You cough again,<br />Expectorate the snakes and<br />Water down the whiskey,<br />Wondering how you got so old<br />And where your passion went.<br /><br />The wild god reaches into a bag<br />Made of moles and nightingale-ski<span class="m_-8389794081277745128word_break" style="display: inline-block;"></span>n.<br />He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,<br />Raises an eyebrow<br />And all the birds begin to sing.<br /><br />The fox leaps into your eyes.<br />Otters rush from the darkness.<br />The snakes pour through your body.<br />Your dog howls and upstairs<br />Your wife both exhalts and weeps at once.<br /><br />The wild god dances with your dog.<br />You dance with the sparrows.<br />A white stag pulls up a stool<br />And bellows hymns to enchantments.<br />A pelican leaps from chair to chair.<br /><br />In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.<br />Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.<br />Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.<br />The hills echo and the grey stones ring<br />With laughter and madness and pain.<br /><br />In the middle of the dance,<br />The house takes off from the ground.<br />Clouds climb through the windows;<br />Lightning pounds its fists on the table.<br />The moon leans in through the window.<br /><br />The wild god points to your side.<br />You are bleeding heavily.<br />You have been bleeding for a long time,<br />Possibly since you were born.<br />There is a bear in the wound.<br /><br />‘Why did you leave me to die?’<br />Asks the wild god and you say:<br />‘I was busy surviving.<br />The shops were all closed;<br />I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’<br /><br />Listen to them:<br /><br />The fox in your neck and<br />The snakes in your arms and<br />The wren and the sparrow and the deer…<br />The great un-nameable beasts<br />In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…<br /><br />There is a symphony of howling.<br />A cacophony of dissent.<br />The wild god nods his head and<br />You wake on the floor holding a knife,<br />A bottle and a handful of black fur.<br /><br />Your dog is asleep on the table.<br />Your wife is stirring, far above.<br />Your cheeks are wet with tears;<br />Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.<br />A black bear is sitting by the fire.<br /><br />Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.<br />He is awkward and does not know the ways<br />Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.<br />His voice makes vinegar from wine<br />And brings the dead to life.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://shop.hedgespoken.org/products/sometimes-a-wild-god" target="_blank">Tom Hirons' book - Sometimes a Wild God</a></span></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-32758580387780020272017-12-09T09:19:00.000-05:002017-12-09T09:19:28.300-05:00Ourstory, by Carole Satyamurti<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GXFSK0ogeg4?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Carl Orff - O Fortuna, Carmina Burana</span><br />
<br />
Let us now praise women<br />
with feet glass slippers wouldn't fit;<br />
<br />
not the patient, nor even the embittered<br />
ones who kept their place,<br />
<br />
but awkward women, tenacious with truth,<br />
whose elbows disposed of the impossible;<br />
<br />
who split seams, who wouldn't wait,<br />
take no, take sedatives;<br />
<br />
who sang their own numbers, went uninsured,<br />
knew best what they were missing.<br />
<br />
Our misfit mothers are joining forces<br />
underground, their dusts mingling <br />
<br />
breast-bone with scapula, forehead<br />
with forehead. Their steady mass<br />
<br />
bursts locks; lends a springing foot<br />
to our vaulting into enormous rooms.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from<a href="https://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/ourstory" target="_blank"><i> Stitching the Dark: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2005)</i></a></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-45746001181089937212017-11-28T13:15:00.000-05:002017-11-28T13:15:06.130-05:00Throw yourself like seed, by Miguel de Unamuno<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2eJD4Gp5LuM?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">East Carolina University Women's Choir: Warrior</span><br />
<br />
<br />
Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit<br />
sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate<br />
that brushes your heel as it turns going by,<br />
the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.<br />
<br />
Now you are only giving food to that final pain<br />
which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,<br />
but to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts<br />
is the work; start then, turn to the work.<br />
<br />
Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,<br />
don't turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,<br />
and do not let the past weigh down your motion.<br />
<br />
Leave what's alive in the furrow, what's dead in yourself,<br />
for life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;<br />
from your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=0qnyM1WK3zIC&pg=PR6&lpg=PR6&dq=Miguel+De+Unamuno+~+(Roots+and+Wings,+edited+and+translated+by+Robert+Bly)&source=bl&ots=uMRgdkoMBK&sig=o10VHDB1vx-ssVxYIYj4CrPMAAc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjapJz4q9LXAhVG5IMKHe2FAc0Q6AEINzAD#v=onepage&q=Miguel%20De%20Unamuno%20~%20(Roots%20and%20Wings%2C%20edited%20and%20translated%20by%20Robert%20Bly)&f=false" target="_blank"><i>Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975</i></a></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-38825245764658492602017-11-22T08:53:00.002-05:002017-11-22T08:53:54.371-05:00Now I become myself, by May Sarton<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_CTYymbbEL4?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Johann Strauss II - The Blue Danube Waltz</span><br />
<br />
Now I become myself. It's taken<br />
Time, many years and places,<br />
I have been dissolved and shaken,<br />
Worn other people's faces,<br />
Run madly, as if Time were there,<br />
Terribly old, crying a warning,<br />
"hurry, you will be dead before --"<br />
(What? Before you reach the morning?<br />
or the end of the poem, is clear?<br />
Or love safe in the walled city?)<br />
Now to stand still, to be here,<br />
Feel my own weight and density!<br />
The black shadow on the paper<br />
Is my hand; the shadow of a word<br />
As thought shapes the shaper<br />
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.<br />
All fuses now, falls into place<br />
From wish to action, word to silence,<br />
My work, my love, my time, my face<br />
Gathered into one intense<br />
Gesture of growing like a plant.<br />
As slowly as the ripening fruit<br />
Fertile, detached, and always spent,<br />
Falls but does not exhaust the root,<br />
So all the poem is, can give,<br />
Grows in me to become the song,<br />
Made so and rooted by love. <br />
Now there is time and Time is young.<br />
O, in this single hour I live<br />
All of myself and do not move<br />
I, the pursued, who madly ran,<br />
Stand still, stand still, and stop the Sun!<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/543235.Collected_Poems_1930_1993" target="_blank"><i>Collected Poems (1930-1993)</i></a></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-6510455172748641752017-02-07T10:48:00.000-05:002017-02-07T11:52:29.970-05:00here's to opening and upward, by e.e. cummings<span style="font-size: x-small;"> pentru C., ma gandesc la tine</span><br />
<br /><iframe width="300" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QOUXA1sNIkA?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Gabriel Fauré - Requiem : 'In Paradisum'</span><br />
<br />
here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap<br />
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)<br />
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain<br />
<br />
and here's to silent certainly mountains;and to<br />
a disappearing poet of always,snow<br />
and to morning;and to morning's beautiful friend<br />
twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and<br />
<br />
let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid<br />
down with ought with because with every brain<br />
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up<br />
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)<br />
<br />
here's to one undiscoverable guess<br />
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made<br />
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from<i> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/310088.Collected_Poems">Collected Poems</a></i></span>
Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-42046370222083181622016-04-30T19:43:00.003-04:002016-04-30T19:44:20.541-04:00Orpheus Alone, by Mark Strand<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UnilUPXmipM?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Gabriel Fauré - Requiem Op.48</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
</span><br />
<br />
It was an adventure much could be made of: a walk<br />
On the shores of the darkest known river,<br />
Among the hooded, shoving crowds, by steaming rocks<br />
And rows of ruined huts half buried in the muck;<br />
Then to the great court with its marble yard<br />
Whose emptiness gave him the creeps, and to sit there<br />
In the sunken silence of the place and speak<br />
Of what he had lost, what he still possessed of his loss,<br />
And then, pulling out all the stops, describing her eyes,<br />
Her forehead where the golden light of evening spread,<br />
The curve of her neck, the slope of her shoulders, everything<br />
Down to her thighs and calves, letting the words come,<br />
As if lifted from sleep, to drift upstream,<br />
Against the water's will, where all the condemned<br />
And pointless labour, stunned by his voice's cadence,<br />
Would come to a halt, and even the crazed, disheveled<br />
Furies, for the first time, would weep, and the soot-filled<br />
Air would clear just enough for her, the lost bride,<br />
To step through the image of herself and be seen in the light.<br />
As everyone knows, this was the first great poem,<br />
Which was followed by days of sitting around<br />
In the houses of friends, with his head back, his eyes<br />
Closed, trying to will her return, but finding<br />
Only himself, again and again, trapped<br />
In the chill of his loss, and, finally,<br />
Without a word, taking off to wander the hills<br />
Outside of town, where he stayed until he had shaken<br />
The image of love and put in its place the world<br />
As he wished it would be, urging its shape and measure<br />
Into speech of such newness that the world was swayed, <br />
And trees suddenly appeared in the bare place<br />
Where he spoke and lifted their limbs and swept<br />
The tender grass with the gowns of their shade,<br />
And stones, weightless for once, came and set themselves there,<br />
And small animals lay in the miraculous fields of grain<br />
And aisles of corn, and slept. The voice of light<br />
Had come forth from the body of fire, and each thing<br />
Rose from its depths and shone as it never had.<br />
And that was the second great poem,<br />
Which no one recalls anymore. The third and greatest<br />
Came into the world as the world, out of the unsayable,<br />
Invisible source of all longing to be; it came<br />
As things come that will perish, to be seen or heard<br />
Awhile, like the coating of frost or the movement<br />
Of wind, and then no more; it came in the middle of sleep<br />
Like a door to the infinite, and, circled by flame,<br />
Came again at the moment of waking, and, sometimes,<br />
Remote and small, it came as a vision with trees<br />
By a weaving stream, brushing the bank<br />
With their violet shade, with somebody's limbs<br />
Scattered among the matted, mildewed leaves nearby,<br />
With his severed head rolling under the waves,<br />
Breaking the shifting columns of light into a swirl<br />
Of slivers and flecks; it came in a language<br />
Untouched by pity, in lines, lavish and dark,<br />
Where death is reborn and sent into the world as a gift,<br />
So the future, with no voice of its own, nor hope<br />
Of ever becoming more than it will be, might mourn.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from <i>The Continuous Life: Poems</i> (Alfred A Knopf, 1990), © Mark Strand 1990 </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem found at the <a href="http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/orpheus-alone">Poetry Archive</a></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-91218273971405203582016-03-31T07:56:00.000-04:002016-03-31T07:56:12.043-04:00Shoveling Snow With Buddha, by Billy Collins<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g38yqhpS340?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Franz Schubert
- Piano Sonata No 13 in A major, D 664</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Sviatoslav Richter</span><br />
<br />
In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok<br />
you would never see him doing such a thing,<br />
tossing the dry snow over a mountain<br />
of his bare, round shoulder,<br />
his hair tied in a knot,<br />
a model of concentration.<br />
<br />
Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word<br />
for what he does, or does not do.<br />
<br />
Even the season is wrong for him.<br />
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid? <br />
Is this not implied by his serene expression,<br />
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe? <br />
<br />
But here we are, working our way down the driveway,<br />
one shovelful at a time.<br />
We toss the light powder into the clear air.<br />
We feel the cold mist on our faces.<br />
And with every heave we disappear<br />
and become lost to each other<br />
in these sudden clouds of our own making,<br />
these fountain-bursts of snow.<br />
<br />
This is so much better than a sermon in church,<br />
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.<br />
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,<br />
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,<br />
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.<br />
<br />
He has thrown himself into shoveling snow<br />
as if it were the purpose of existence,<br />
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway<br />
you could back the car down easily<br />
and drive off into the vanities of the world<br />
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.<br />
<br />
All morning long we work side by side,<br />
me with my commentary<br />
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,<br />
until the hour is nearly noon<br />
and the snow is piled high all around us; <br />
then, I hear him speak.<br />
<br />
After this, he asks,<br />
can we go inside and play cards? <br />
<br />
Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk<br />
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table<br />
while you shuffle the deck.<br />
and our boots stand dripping by the door.<br />
<br />
Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes<br />
and leaning for a moment on his shovel<br />
before he drives the thin blade again<br />
deep into the glittering white snow.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from <a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shoveling-snow-with-buddha/" target="_blank">Poemhunter.com </a></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-37064200483667476332015-12-31T20:45:00.003-05:002015-12-31T20:47:28.564-05:00Heading out, by Philip Booth<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sw9DlMNnpPM?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Chaconne, from Partita in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004) by Johann Sebastian Bach</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Transcribed for piano by Ferruccio Busoni </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">With Hélène Grimau</span><br />
<br />
Beyond here there's no map.<br />
How you get there is where<br />
you'll arrive; how, dawn by<br />
dawn, you can see your way<br />
clear: in ponds, sky, just as<br />
woods you walk through give<br />
to fields. And rivers: beyond<br />
all burning, you'll cross on bridges<br />
you've long lugged with you.<br />
Whatever your route, go lightly,<br />
toward light. Once you give away<br />
all save necessity, all's<br />
mostly well: what you used to<br />
believe you owned is nothing,<br />
nothing beside how you've come<br />
to feel. You've no need now<br />
to give in or give out: the way<br />
you're going your body seems<br />
willing. Slowly as it may<br />
otherwise tell you, whatever<br />
it comes to you're bound to know.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/154/1#!/20601996" target="_blank">Poetry magazine, April 1989</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">With gratitude for a wonder-full year behind and a new one ahead.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-76034181284859035052015-11-13T13:26:00.000-05:002015-11-13T13:26:00.124-05:00Mindful, by Mary Oliver<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kvk-X5TrCDw?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Fantasia No 3 in D minor, K 397 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Emil Gilels </span><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Every Day<br />
I see or hear<br />
something<br />
that more or less<br />
kills me<br />
with delight,<br />
that leaves me<br />
like a needle<br />
in the haystack<br />
of light.<br />
It is what I was born for—<br />
to look, to listen,<br />
to lose myself<br />
inside this soft world—<br />
to instruct myself<br />
over and over<br />
in joy,<br />
and acclamation.<br />
Nor am I talking<br />
about the exceptional,<br />
the fearful, the dreadful,<br />
the very extravagant—<br />
but of the ordinary,<br />
the common, the very drab<br />
the daily presentations.<br />
Oh, good scholar,<br />
I say to myself,<br />
how can you help<br />
but grow wise<br />
with such teachings<br />
as these—<br />
the untrimmable light<br />
of the world,<br />
the ocean's shine,<br />
the prayers that are made<br />
out of grass?</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-71569015306370751992015-11-07T13:18:00.000-05:002015-11-07T13:18:00.312-05:00Quiet friend who has come so far, by RM Rilke<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/De1nv9CwTjI?list=PLI_1pjOt7t8mjQ9615_GnKW8x1qU6f9AF&showinfo=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Adagio and Fugue in C Minor, K. 546: I. Adagio by WA Mozart</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Herbert von Karajan & Berliner Philharmoniker</span><br />
<br />
Quiet friend who has come so far,<br />
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.<br />
<br />
Let this darkness be a bell tower<br />
and you the bell. As you ring,<br />
<br />
what batters you becomes your strength.<br />
Move back and forth into the change.<br />
What is it like, such intensity of pain?<br />
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.<br />
<br />
In this uncontainable night,<br />
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,<br />
the meaning discovered there.<br />
<br />
And if the world has ceased to hear you,<br />
say to the silent Earth: I flow.<br />
To the rushing water, speak: I am.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from Part Two, Sonnet XXIX</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from <a href="http://joannamacy.net/poemsilove/78-rilkefavorites.html" target="_blank">Joanna Macy's website</a></span> Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-53847137539323960342015-10-30T10:15:00.000-04:002016-03-24T10:56:39.419-04:00The Hug, by Tess Gallagher<span style="font-size: x-small;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hdc2zNgJIpY?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="300"></iframe><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour (Barcarolle) - from The Tales of Hoffmann, by Jacques Offenbach</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca</span><br />
<br />
A woman is reading a poem on the street<br />
and another woman stops to listen. We stop too,<br />
with our arms around each other. The poem<br />
is being read and listened to out here in the open.<br />
<br />
Behind us no one is entering or leaving the houses.<br />
<br />
Suddenly a hug comes over me and I am giving it to
you,<br />
like a variable star shooting light off to make itself comfortable,<br />
then subsiding. I finish but keep on holding you.
A man walks up<br />
to us and we know he has not come out of nowhere, but if he could, he would have.<br />
<br />
He looks homeless because of how he needs.<br />
“Can I have one of those?’ he asks you, and I feel
you nod.<br />
I am surprised, surprised you don’t tell him how it
is –<br />
that I am yours, only yours, etc., exclusive as a nose to its face.<br />
<br />
Love - that’s what we’re talking about. Love that nabs you with “for me only” and holds on.<br />
<br />
So I walk over to him and put my arms around him and try to<br />
hug him like I mean it. He’s got an overcoat on so
thick I can’t feel him past it.<br />
I’m starting the hug and thinking. “How big a hug is this supposed to be?<br />
How long shall I hold this hug?” Already we could be eternal,<br />
His arms falling over my shoulders, my hands not meeting behind his back, he is so big!<br />
<br />
I put my head into his chest and snuggle in. I lean
into him. I lean<br />
my blood and my wishes into him. He stands for it.
This is his and he’s starting<br />
to give it back so well I know he’s getting it. This Hug. So truly,<br />
so tenderly, we stop having arms and I don’t know if my lover has walked away<br />
Or what, or if the woman is still reading the poem,
or the houses - what about them? - the houses.<br />
<br />
Clearly, a little permission is a dangerous thing.
But when you hug someone<br />
you want it to be a masterpiece of connection, the
way the button on his coat<br />
will leave the imprint of a planet in my cheek when
I walk away.<br />
When I try to find some place to go back to.<br />
<br />
<br />
Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-39982231474322147212015-10-23T09:57:00.000-04:002015-10-23T09:57:57.837-04:00There is a girl inside, by Lucille Clifton<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3rjOrOt6wFw?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Habanera, from Carmen by Georges Bizet</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Maria Callas</span><br />
<br />
<br />
There is a girl inside.<br />
She is randy as a wolf.<br />
She will not walk away and leave these bones<br />
to an old woman.<br />
<br />
She is a green tree in a forest of kindling.<br />
She is a green girl in a used poet.<br />
<br />
She has waited patient as a nun<br />
for the second coming,<br />
when she can break through gray hairs<br />
into blossom<br />
<br />
and her lovers will harvest<br />
honey and thyme<br />
and the woods will be wild<br />
with the damn wonder of it.<br />
<br />
<br />
Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-75626809653709764802015-07-20T00:35:00.000-04:002015-07-20T00:40:42.170-04:00Initiation Song from the Finders Lodge, by Ursula Le Guin<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OP69YYU1_VI?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Gaudete - </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">with East Carolina University Women's Choir
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Erin Plisco, conductor</span>
<br />
<br />
Please bring strange things. <br />
Please come bringing new things. <br />
Let very old things come into your hands.
<br />
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
<br />
Let desert sand harden your feet. <br />
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains. <br />
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
<br />
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms. <br />
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
<br />
and your outbreath be the shining of ice. <br />
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
<br />
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten. <br />
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
<br />
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
<br />
Walk carefully, well-loved one,
<br />
walk mindfully, well-loved one,
<br />
walk fearlessly, well-loved one. <br />
Return with us, return to us,
<br />
be always coming home.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from <a href="http://www.ursulakleguin.com/ACH/Index.html" target="_blank">Always Coming Home</a> (University of California Press, 1985)
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem found on </span><a href="http://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2014/04/ursula-le-guin-initiation-song-from.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A Year of Being Here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">post inspired by </span><a href="http://treesisters.org/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">TreeSisters</span></a>
Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-76388403829566348732015-04-14T11:19:00.002-04:002015-04-14T11:51:02.571-04:00Eagle poem, by Joy Harjo<div align="center">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WSKZ15XZQes?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 </span></span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
with Leonard Bernstein</span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"></span> </span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">To pray you open your whole self<br />To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon<br />To one whole voice that is you.<br />And know there is more<br />That you can't see, can't hear<br />Can't know except in moments<br />Steadily growing, and in languages<br />That aren't always sound but other<br />Circles of motion.<br />Like eagle that Sunday morning<br />Over Salt River. Circles in blue sky<br />In wind, swept our hearts clean<br />With sacred wings.<br />We see you, see ourselves and know<br />That we must take the utmost care<br />And kindness in all things.<br />Breathe in, knowing we are made of<br />All this, and breathe, knowing<br />We are truly blessed because we<br />Were born, and die soon, within a<br />True circle of motion,<br />Like eagle rounding out the morning<br />Inside us.<br />We pray that it will be done<br />In beauty.<br />In beauty.</span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div align="center">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">from <em><a href="http://books.google.ca/books/about/How_We_Became_Human_New_and_Selected_Poe.html?id=lFzs1nrll5gC&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">How We Become Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001</a></em></span></span></div>
Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-71117993025987924102015-03-29T21:00:00.000-04:002015-03-29T21:00:40.744-04:00Twenty-One Love Poems, VI, by Adrienne Rich<strong><span style="color: #134f5c;">This is a re-post, for </span></strong><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/30/adrienne-rich"><strong><span style="color: #134f5c;">Adrienne</span></strong></a><strong><span style="color: #134f5c;">, may you rest in peace.</span></strong>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<object height="255" width="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Yu06WnXlPCY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Yu06WnXlPCY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="300" height="255"></embed></object><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Prelude in B minor, arranged for piano by Alexander Siloti<br />from Prelude in E minor BWV 855a by J. S. Bach<br />with Emil Gilels</span><br />
<br />
Your small hands, precisely equal to my own -<br />
only the thumb is larger, longer - in these hands<br />
I could trust the world, or in many hands like these,<br />
handling power-tools or steering-wheel<br />
or touching a human face...such hands could turn<br />
the unborn child rightways in the birth canal<br />
or pilot the exploratory rescue-ship<br />
through icebergs, or piece together<br />
the fine, needle-like shreds of a great krater-cup<br />
bearing on its sides<br />
fingers of ecstatic women striding<br />
to the sibyl's den or the Eleusinian cave -<br />
such hands might carry out an unavoidable violence<br />
with such restraint, with such a grasp<br />
of the range and limits of violence<br />
that violence ever after would be obsolete.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">in </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fact-Door-Frame-Selected-1950-84/dp/0393302040"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-style: italic;">The Fact of a Door Frame: Poems Selected and New, 1950-84</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">, WW Norton & Co (1985)</span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-44885746573177988132015-03-28T07:00:00.000-04:002015-03-28T13:32:35.952-04:00Flower Chorus, by Ralph Waldo Emerson<object height="225" width="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OloXRhesab0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param>
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OloXRhesab0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="300" height="225"></embed></object><br />
<span style="font-size: 85%;">Gioachino Rossini - Overture, Il Barbiere di Siviglia</span><br />
<br />
O such a commotion under the ground,<br />
When March called: "Ho! There! Ho!"<br />
Such spreading of rootlets far and wide<br />
Such whisperings to and fro!<br />
"Are you ready?" the Snowdrop asked,<br />
"'Tis time to start, you know."<br />
"Almost, my dear!" the Scilla replied,<br />
"I'll follow as soon as you go."<br />
Then "Ha! ha! ha!" the chorus came<br />
Of laughter sweet and low,<br />
From millions of flowers under the ground,<br />
Yes, millions beginning to grow. <br />
<br />
"I'll promise my blossoms, " the crocus said,<br />
"When I hear the black bird sing."<br />
And straight thereafter the Narcissus cried,<br />
"My silver and gold I'll bring."<br />
"And ere they are dulled," another spoke,<br />
"The Hyacinth bells shall ring."<br />
But the Violet only murmured, "I'm here,"<br />
And sweet grew the air of Spring. <br />
<br />
O the pretty brave things, thro' the coldest days<br />
Imprisoned in walls of brown,<br />
They never lost heart tho' the blast shrieked loud,<br />
And the sleet and the hail came down;<br />
But patiently each wrought her wonderful dress<br />
Or fashioned her beautiful crown,<br />
And now they are coming to ligthten the world<br />
till shadowed by winter's frown.<br />
And well may they cheerly laugh "Ha! ha!"<br />
In laughter sweet and low,<br />
The millions of flowers under the ground,<br />
Yes, millions beginning to grow.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from the </span><a href="http://www.parabola.org/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=tags&layout=tag&id=143&Itemid=268" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Parabola website</span></a>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-65721599508058823422015-03-20T10:49:00.000-04:002015-03-20T10:49:19.808-04:00Clearing, by Morgan Farley<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B5717CFgCgo?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Franz Schubert - Impromptu No 3 in G flat major Op 90 D 899<br />
with Grigory Sokolov</span><br />
<br />
I am clearing a space<br />
here, where the trees stand back.<br />
I am making a circle so open<br />
the moon will fall in love<br />
and stroke these grasses with her silver.<br />
<br />
I am setting stones in the four directions,<br />
stones that have called my name<br />
from mountaintops and riverbeds, canyons and mesas.<br />
Here I will stand with my hands empty, <br />
mind gaping under the moon.<br />
<br />
I know there is another way to live.<br />
When I find it, the angels<br />
will cry out in rapture,<br />
each cell of my body<br />
will be a rose, a star.<br />
<br />
If something seized my life tonight,<br />
if a sudden wind swept through me, <br />
changing everything,<br />
I would not resist.<br />
I am ready for whatever comes.<br />
<br />
But I think it will be <br />
something small, an animal<br />
padding out from the shadows,<br />
or a word spoken so softly<br />
I hear it inside.<br />
<br />
It is dark out here, and cold.<br />
The moon is stone.<br />
I am alone with my longing.<br />
Nothing is happening<br />
but the next breath.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from the </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.gratefulness.org/poetry/clearing_farley.htm" target="_blank">Gratefulness.org website</a></span><br />
<br />
Many blessings to you all on this New Moon-Eclipse-Equinox time of clearings and new beginnings.Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-21121112903424619752015-03-15T19:20:00.000-04:002015-03-15T19:20:20.895-04:00Say Yes Quickly, by Rumi<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B7pQytF2nak?rel=0" width="300"></iframe>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ludwig Van Beethoven - Fifth Symphony, I - Allegro con brio</span><br />
<br />
Forget your life. Say <em>God is Great</em>. Get up.<br />
You think you know what time it is. It’s time to pray.<br />
You’ve carved so many little figurines, too many.<br />
Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar.<br />
Reach your long hands out to another door, beyond where<br />
you go on the street, the street<br />
where everyone says, “How are you?”<br />
and no one says <em>How aren’t you?</em><br />
<br />
Tomorrow you’ll see what you’ve broken and torn tonight,<br />
thrashing in the dark. Inside you<br />
there’s an artist you don’t know about.<br />
He’s not interested in how things look different in moonlight.<br />
<br />
If you are here unfaithfully with us,<br />
you’re causing terrible damage.<br />
If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love,<br />
you’re helping people you don’t know<br />
and have never seen.<br />
<br />
Is what I say true? Say <em>yes</em> quickly,<br />
if you know, if you’ve known it<br />
from before the beginning of the universe.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from </span><a href="http://sufism.org/lineage/rumi/rumi-excerpts/poems-of-rumi-tr-by-coleman-barks-published-by-threshold-books-2" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Threshold Society website</span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">translated by Coleman Barks</span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-44264534124790938412015-02-12T21:05:00.000-05:002015-02-12T21:07:57.070-05:00Lost, by David Wagoner<span style="font-size: x-small;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c3iFRaTwwj0?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Vincenzo Bellini - Casta Diva, from Norma</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Angela Gheorghiu (2001)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: normal;">Stand
still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you<br />Are not lost. Wherever you are
is called Here,<br />And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,<br />Must ask
permission to know it and be known.<br />The forest breathes. Listen. It
answers,<br />I have made this place around you,<br />If you leave it you may come
back again, saying Here.<br />No two trees are the same to Raven.<br />No two
branches are the same to Wren.<br />If what a tree or a bush does is lost on
you,<br />You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows<br />Where you are. You
must let it find you.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;">poem from <a href="http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/david-wagoner" target="_blank"><i>Riverbed</i></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Indiana University Press, 1972)<i> </i></span> </span></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-4480156273263990792015-01-31T00:36:00.000-05:002015-01-31T00:36:13.364-05:00Violins, by Anna Margolin<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="169" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Dagrn_9V4jE?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Niccolò Paganini - Concerto for Violin 1 in D major, Op. 6, III</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Yehudi Menuhin</span><br />
<br />
The blue dream of violins.<br />
<br />
I and you,<br />
<br />
such a revelation,<br />
<br />
such a revelation,<br />
<br />
and nobody knows,<br />
<br />
that we circle<br />
<br />
in golden rings<br />
<br />
like butterflies,<br />
<br />
in the blue night of violins.<br />
<br />
You, my peace,<br />
<br />
our night,<br />
<br />
the blue violins play<br />
<br />
for me and for you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from <i><a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-4173-drunk-from-the-bitter-truth.aspx" target="_blank">Drunk from the bitter truth: Poems of Anna Margolin</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">State University of New York Press, 2005</span> Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-26465688370218633252015-01-20T11:55:00.000-05:002015-01-21T00:04:52.605-05:00Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved, by Gregory Orr<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CFmERWFrTsA?rel=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Laudate Dominum</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from Vesperae solenne de confessore KV 339</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Lucia Popp</span><br />
<br />
<i>Resurrection of the body of the beloved,<br />
Which is the world.<br />
Which is the poem<br />
Of the world, the poem of the body.</i><br />
<i>
</i><i>Mortal ourselves and filled with awe,<br />
We gather the scattered limbs<br />
Of Osiris.<br />
That he should live again.<br />
That death not be oblivion.</i><br />
<br />
•<br />
<br />
The beloved is dead. Limbs<br />
And all the body's<br />
Miraculous parts<br />
Scattered across Egypt,<br />
Stained with dark mud.<br />
<br />
We must find them, gather<br />
Them together, bring them<br />
Into a single place<br />
As an anthologist might collect<br />
All the poems that matter<br />
Into a single book, a book<br />
Which is the body of the beloved,<br />
Which is the world.<br />
<br />
<br />
Who wants to lose the world,<br />
For all its tumult and suffering?<br />
Who wants to leave the world,<br />
For all its sorrow?<br />
Not I.<br />
And so I come to the Book,<br />
Which is also the body<br />
Of the beloved. And so<br />
I come to the poem.<br />
The poem is the world<br />
Scattered by passion, then<br />
Gathered together again<br />
So that we may have hope.<br />
<br />
The shape of the Book<br />
Is the door to the grave,<br />
Is the shape of the stone<br />
Closed over us, so that<br />
We may know terror<br />
Is what we pass through<br />
To reach hope, and courage<br />
Is our necessary companion.<br />
<br />
The shape of the Book<br />
Is dark as death, and every page<br />
Is lit with hope, glows<br />
With the light of the vital body.<br />
<br />
<br />
When I open the Book<br />
I hear the poets whisper and weep,<br />
Laugh and lament.<br />
<br />
In a thousand languages<br />
They say the same thing:<br />
"We lived. The secret of life<br />
Is love, which casts its wing<br />
Over all suffering, which takes<br />
In its arms the hurt child,<br />
Which rises green from the fallen seed."<br />
<br />
<br />
It's not magic; it isn't a trick.<br />
Every breath is a resurrection.<br />
And when we hear the poem<br />
Which is the world, when our eyes<br />
Gaze at the beloved's body,<br />
We're reborn in all the sacred parts<br />
Of our own bodies:<br />
the heart<br />
Contracts, the brain<br />
Releases its shower<br />
Of sparks,<br />
and the tear<br />
Embarks on its pilgrimage<br />
Down the cheek to meet<br />
The smiling mouth.<br />
<br />
<br />
Sadness is there, too.<br />
All the sadness in the world.<br />
Because the tide ebbs,<br />
Because wild waves<br />
Punish the shore<br />
And the small lives lived there.<br />
Because the body is scattered.<br />
Because death is real<br />
And sometimes death is not<br />
Even the worst of it.<br />
<br />
If sadness did not run<br />
Like a river through the Book,<br />
Why would we go there?<br />
What would we drink?<br />
<br />
<br />
Isis kneels on the banks<br />
Of the Nile. She is assembling<br />
The limbs of Osiris.<br />
Her live limbs moving<br />
Above his dead, moving<br />
As if in a dance, her torso<br />
Swaying, her long arms<br />
Reaching out in a quiet<br />
Constant motion.<br />
<br />
And the river below her<br />
Making its own motions,<br />
Eddies and swirls, a burbling<br />
Sound the current makes<br />
As if a throat was being cleared,<br />
As if the world was about to speak.<br />
<br />
<br />
The poem is written on the body,<br />
And the body is written on the poem.<br />
<br />
The Book is written in the world,<br />
And the world is written in the Book.<br />
<br />
This is the reciprocity of love<br />
That outwits death. Death looks<br />
In one place and we're in the other.<br />
<br />
Death looks there, but we are here.<br />
<br />
<br />
"What is life?"<br />
When you first<br />
Hear that question<br />
It echoes in your skull<br />
As if someone shouted<br />
In an empty cave.<br />
The same answer each time:<br />
The resurrection of the body<br />
Of the beloved, which is<br />
The world.<br />
<br />
Every poem different but<br />
Telling the same story.<br />
And we've been gathering<br />
Them in a book<br />
Since writing began<br />
And before that as songs<br />
Or poems people memorized<br />
And recited aloud<br />
When someone asked: "What is life?"<br />
<br />
<br />
The things that die<br />
Do not die,<br />
Or they die briefly<br />
To be born again<br />
In the Book.<br />
<br />
Did you think<br />
You would see<br />
The loved one again<br />
In this world<br />
Or in some other?<br />
<br />
No, that cannot happen.<br />
But we have been<br />
Gathering, all of us,<br />
The scattered remnants<br />
Of the loved one<br />
Since the beginning.<br />
<br />
In Egypt, the loved<br />
One is not in the pyramids<br />
But in the poem<br />
Carved in stone<br />
About the lover's lips<br />
And eyes.<br />
In the igloo<br />
The poem gathers<br />
The dark hair of the beloved.<br />
<br />
<br />
All the poems of the world<br />
Have been gathering the beloved's<br />
Body against your loss.<br />
Read in the Book. Open<br />
Your eyes and your heart;<br />
Open your voice.<br />
The beloved<br />
Is there and was never lost.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from Part One of <a href="http://www.cstone.net/%7Epoems/conceorr.htm"><i>Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved</i></a><br />
<a href="http://www.coppercanyonpress.org/">Copper Canyon Press</a></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-25875333363882482612014-12-27T23:43:00.003-05:002017-02-09T16:39:06.826-05:00For a New Beginning, by John O'Donohue<br />
<iframe width="300" height="169" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DKmVv21wfAI?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Edvard Grieg - Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16, II</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with Radu Lupu, piano </span><br />
<br />
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,<br />
Where your thoughts never think to wander,<br />
This beginning has been quietly forming,<br />
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.<br />
For a long time it has watched your desire,<br />
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,<br />
Noticing how you willed yourself on,<br />
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.<br />
It watched you play with the seduction of safety<br />
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,<br />
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,<br />
Wondered would you always live like this.<br />
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,<br />
And out you stepped onto new ground,<br />
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,<br />
A path of plenitude opening before you.<br />
Though your destination is not yet clear<br />
You can trust the promise of this opening;<br />
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning<br />
That is at one with your life’s desire.<br />
Awaken your spirit to adventure;<br />
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;<br />
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,<br />
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from <i><a href="http://www.johnodonohue.com/books">To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings</a></i></span> Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-86179553596627172092014-12-17T10:49:00.000-05:002014-12-17T10:49:41.821-05:00The Winter of Listening, by David Whyte<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ZZT0qW5gHIM?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Maurice Ravel - Gaspard de la nuit: Trois poèmes pour piano d'après Aloysius Bertrand</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Piano: Samson François</span><br />
<br />
No one but me by the fire,<br />
my hands burning<br />
red in the palms while<br />
the night wind carries<br />
everything away outside.<br />
<br />
All this petty worry<br />
while the great cloak<br />
of the sky grows dark<br />
and intense<br />
round every living thing.<br />
<br />
What is precious<br />
inside us does not<br />
care to be known<br />
by the mind<br />
in ways that diminish<br />
its presence.<br />
<br />
What we strive for<br />
in perfection<br />
is not what turns us<br />
into the lit angel<br />
we desire,<br />
<br />
what disturbs<br />
and then nourishes<br />
has everything<br />
we need.<br />
<br />
What we hate<br />
in ourselves<br />
is what we cannot know<br />
in ourselves but<br />
what is true to the pattern<br />
does not need<br />
to be explained.<br />
<br />
Inside everyone<br />
is a great shout of joy<br />
waiting to be born.<br />
<br />
Even with the summer<br />
so far off<br />
I feel it grown in me<br />
now and ready<br />
to arrive in the world.<br />
<br />
All those years<br />
listening to those<br />
who had<br />
nothing to say.<br />
<br />
All those years<br />
forgetting<br />
how everything<br />
has its own voice<br />
to make<br />
itself heard.<br />
<br />
All those years<br />
forgetting<br />
how easily<br />
you can belong<br />
to everything<br />
simply by listening.<br />
<br />
And the slow<br />
difficulty<br />
of remembering<br />
how everything<br />
is born from<br />
an opposite<br />
and miraculous<br />
otherness.<br />
<br />
Silence and winter<br />
has led me to that<br />
otherness.<br />
<br />
So let this winter<br />
of listening<br />
be enough<br />
for the new life<br />
I must call my own.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">poem from <a href="http://www.onbeing.org/blog/a-new-life-i-must-call-my-own/7109" target="_blank">here </a></span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-63463352593416635192014-11-27T12:11:00.003-05:002015-01-03T01:40:27.412-05:00Dear Heart<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/YyknBTm_YyM?rel=0&controls=0" width="300"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Camille Saint-Saëns - Danse Macabre </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Conductor Leopold Stokowski</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The sun does not make shadows - </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
it calls, an invitation</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to dance, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
shadow and light. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It is time, dear heart</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to remember you,<br />
<br />
too,<br />
<br />
can hold this</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
dance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2653769908128370386.post-38368666369669697162014-11-20T11:35:00.000-05:002014-11-20T19:07:55.424-05:00Invocation, by Jeanne Lohmann<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-rh8gMvzPw0?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0" width="300"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Edvard Grieg - Peer Gynt Suite No.1, Op.46 - 1. Morning Mood </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">with the Berliner Philharmoniker</span><br />
<br />
Let us try what it is to be true to gravity,<br />
to grace, to the given, faithful to our own voices,<br />
<br />
to lines making the map of our furrowed tongue.<br />
Turned toward the root of a single word, refusing<br />
<br />
solemnity and slogans, let us honor what hides<br />
and does not come easy to speech. The pebbles<br />
<br />
we hold in our mouth help us to practice song,<br />
and we sing to the sea. May the things of this world<br />
<br />
be preserved to us, their beautiful secret<br />
vocabularies. We are dreaming it over and new,<br />
<br />
the language of our tribe, music we hear<br />
we can only acknowledge. May the naming powers<br />
<br />
be granted. Our words are feathers that fly<br />
on our breath. Let them go in a holy direction.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">from <i><a href="http://www.politicalaffairs.net/a-jeanne-lohmann-thanksgiving-grace/" target="_blank">Between Silence and Answer</a></i> (<a href="http://www.pendlehill.org/bookstore/" target="_blank">Pendle Hill Publications</a>, 1994) </span>Manuela Popovicihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10890843512625313964noreply@blogger.com0