Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Blessings

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Matthew 5 : 8

Source

"That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep."--- Aldous Huxley

"The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That's what I think."--- Maya Angelou 

"Every blessing ignored becomes a curse."--- Paulo Coelho

                  Midweek Motif ~ Blessings

Blessing is a gift of bliss, affirmation, hope and inspiration bestowed upon a person.

Let’s find out who showers Blessings even in these days of guilt, abuse, greed, misery, crimes and cares.  

Sometimes we are at the receiving end and sometimes giving.

Capture your Blessings in your lines today.

The Negro Mother

By Langston Hughes

 Children, I come back today 

To tell you a story of the long dark way

That I had to climb, that I had to know 

In order that the race might live and grow.

Look at my face -- dark as the night -- 

Yet shining like the sun with love's true light.

I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea 

Carrying in my body the seed of the free.

I am the woman who worked in the field 

Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.

 I am the one who labored as a slave,

Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave -- 

Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too.

 No safety , no love, no respect was I due.

Three hundred years in the deepest South: 

But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth .

 

God put a dream like steel in my soul.

 

Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal.

 

Now, through my children, young and free, 

I realized the blessing deed to me.

                                 (The rest is here)

Thanksgiving



By Ella Wheeler Wilcox






We walk on starry fields of white 

And do not see the daisies; 

For blessings common in our sight 

We rarely offer praises. 

We sigh for some supreme delight 

To crown our lives with splendor, 

And quite ignore our daily store 

Of pleasures sweet and tender.



Our cares are bold and push their way 

Upon our thought and feeling. 

They hang about us all the day, 

Our time from pleasure stealing. 

So unobtrusive many a joy 

We pass by and forget it, 

But worry strives to own our lives 

And conquers if we let it.



There's not a day in all the year 

But holds some hidden pleasure, 

And looking back, joys oft appear 

To brim the past's wide measure.



But blessings are like friends, I hold, 

Who love and labor near us. 

We ought to raise our notes of praise 

While living hearts can hear us.



Full many a blessing wears the guise 

Of worry or of trouble. 

Farseeing is the soul and wise 

Who knows the mask is double. 

But he who has the faith and strength 

To thank his God for sorrow 

Has found a joy without alloy 

To gladden every morrow.



We ought to make the moments notes 

Of happy, glad Thanksgiving; 

The hours and days a silent phrase 

Of music we are living. 

And so the theme should swell and grow 

As weeks and months pass o'er us, 

And rise sublime at this good time, 

A grand Thanksgiving chorus. 








No. 5



By Boris Chichibabin



(Translated by Richard McKane)








May the lord grant you that from root to crown


the parting may be a gathering point without disaster.


For those who leave—a parting greeting.


For those who stay—brotherhood and sisterhood.





Remember our winter snows


in the hot foreign lands.


The train whistles for those going away.


Retribution for those who stay.





Both good and evil fate


are apportioned rationally.


I understand those who leave,


I know those who stay.





The limit of the soul is Old Russia’s pain,




bells chiming to each other the origins,


(I don’t argue with those who leave,


I remain with those who stay.)





Give us who live with snowstorms and ice,


you who do not judge and forgetful,


love to those who leave,


hope to those who stay.





He who is weak, and he who is stern


each chooses between:


the sword and work of leaving,


the hope or remaining.





But according to the covenant of Sabaoth


at the end of this very road,


there is Sinai for those who leave,


and Golgotha for those who stay…





I am tired of making snap judgments,


of measuring the immeasurable with the temporal.


Sadness to those who leave.




Faithfulness to those who stay. 








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








                                  (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be ~ Conquest   )