Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Courage

source: Morguefile

Midweek Motif ~ Courage

"Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love Known?"---William Shakespeare

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."---Mark Twain

"Courage without conscience is a wild beast"---Robert Green Ingersoll

"Courage is grace under pressure."---Ernest Hemmingway


We are all capable of controlling fear while facing danger, pain or even opposition with courage. Every one of us responds to adversity in some part of our life. That's what makes us a conscious being. We could not have survived without this virtue that gives us the strength to begin, continue and end this life journey.

Many find courage in the smallest thing of daily life and many feel that courage is a measure of our self-esteem and will.

And definitely it takes courage to be 'yourself'!

Now let's see how Anne Sexton marches her readers through the stages of life with courage:

Courage

by Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it only with a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
                                           (The rest is here)



More 'courage' poems for today's inspiration:

The Survivor

by Primo Levi

I am twenty-four
led to slaughter
I survived.

The following are empty synonyms:
man and beast
love and hate
friend and foe
darkness and light.

The way of killing men and beasts is the same
I've seen it:
truckfuls of chopped up men
who will not be saved.

Ideas are mere words:
virtue and crime
truth and lies
beauty and ugliness
courage and cowardice.

Virtue and crime weigh the same
I've seen it:
in a man who has both
criminal and virtuous.

I seek a teacher and a master
may he restore my sight hearing and speech
may he again name objects and ideas
may he separate darkness from light.

I am twenty-four
led to slaughter
I survived.

Symptoms of Love

by Robert Graves

Love is universal migraine,
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

Symptoms of true love
Are leanness, jealousy,
Laggard dawns;

Are omens and nightmares-
Listening for a knock,
Waiting for a sign:

For a touch of her fingers
In a darkened room,
For a searching look.

Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?

Write a poem on the theme "Courage"

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky belowand visit others in the spirit of the community.

             (Next week Sumana's Midweek Motif will be ~ Identity)