Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Everyday Living

“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.”— Khalil Gibran

SOURCE

“Sit in a room and read- -and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

    Midweek Motif ~Everyday Living

As individual lifestyles vary everyday living may be different for different people. For some it’s exciting and for others it’s very mundane and routine life.

Once Rainer Maria Rilke said, “If your life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator there is no poverty”.

There are always two ways of looking at an object. Is the glass half empty or half full?

Let’s listen to what you have to say.

Here is a list of links to some amazing poems about everyday living and human existence:

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Samurai Song by Robert Pinsky

August 1953 by David Wojahn

Daily Life by Susan Wood

Little Night Prayer by Péter Kántor 

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 ~ The Food We Eat)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Starting Over

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"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come."

Joseph Campbell

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning."

J. B. Priestly

"The beginning is always today."

Mary Shelley

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Midweek Motif ~ Starting Over

I hope your new year is going well!  You may be continuing your "normal," rather than starting over ~ but we all have experienced a re-starting, whether it be in writing a poem, singing a song, trying to sleep, taking up a career, or reforming a government.  Or maybe we just wished we could start something over again.

This prompt is also a response to Phillip Moffit's article "Starting Over" on his "Darma Wisdom" blog.  He speaks of the moment of drifting away in meditation (just start over) and losing focus on resolutions (just start over), among other things.

Your Challenge: Write a new poem in which you sing of starting over.  Or call it by its other names: reboot, renew, recommence, take two,  going back to the drawing board, etc.

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excerpt from

 Oh Great Spirit

BY DEENA METZGER

. . . . 

Restore the animals.

In the name of Raven. In the name of Wolf. In the name of Whale. In

the name of Elephant. In the name of Snake.

Forgive us. Have mercy. May the animals return. Not as a resurrection

but as living beings. Here. On earth. On this earth that is also theirs.

Oh Great Spirit. Heal the animals. Protect the animals. Restore the

animals.

Our lives will also be healed. Our souls will be protected. Our

spirits will be restored.

Oh Spirit of Raven. Oh Spirit of Wolf. Oh Spirit of Whale. Oh Spirit of

Elephant. Oh Spirit of Snake.

Teach us, again, how to live.

(Read the rest HERE)

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THE GUEST HOUSE
By Rumi
Translation by Coleman Barks

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
Because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

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The Phoenix Again

by May Sarton

On the ashes of this nest
Love wove with deathly fire
The phoenix takes its rest
Forgetting all desire.

After the flame, a pause,
After the pain, rebirth.
Obeying nature’s laws
The phoenix goes to earth.

You cannot call it old
You cannot call it young.
No phoenix can be told,
This is the end of the song.

It struggles now alone
Against death and self-doubt,
But underneath the bone
The wings are pushing out.

And one cold starry night
Whatever your belief
The phoenix will take flight
Over the seas of grief

To sing her thrilling song
To stars and waves and sky
For neither old nor young
The phoenix does not die. 

A phoenix (in a book of legendary creatures by FJ Bertuch)

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Find more inspiration at NPR's Starting Over:

A series of profiles of people who, by choice or circumstance, 

reinvented or transformed themselves.

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

      (Our next Midweek Motif will be Sumana's ~ 

Life: Paradox And / Or Balance )