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 )

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Psyche / Soul

Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1793) by Antonio Canova

". . .  the heart of the star as opposed to the shape of a star, let us say — exists in a mysterious, unmapped zone: not unconscious, not subconscious, but cautious." 
~ Mary Oliver

“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.”  
~ May Sarton

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Midweek Motif ~ Psyche / Soul

          Since Sumana made the last Midweek Motif  "poetry about the body," I thought poetry about psyche and soul logically followed: psychology and spirituality.   Are mind and soul synonymous?  Do either exist without body?

          Psyche is also the name of Cupid's love in Greek Mythology ~ a myth which is a very dramatic story on the order of "The Beauty and the Beast."

Your Challenge:  In today's new poem, turn your attention to themes of consciousness and unconsciousness, to soul or to Psyche herself.

The structure of the souls of plants, animals, and humans, 
according to Aristotle.

Psyche in Somerville

BY DENISE LEVERTOV

I am angry with X, with Y, with Z,

for not being you.

Enthusiasms jump at me,

wagging and barking. Go away.

Go home.

I am angry with my eyes for not seeing you,

they smart and ache and see the snow,

an insistent brilliance.

If I were Psyche how could I not

bring the lamp to our bedside?

I would have known in advance

all the travails my gazing

would bring, more than Psyche

ever imagined,

and even so, how could I not have raised

the amber flame to see

the human person I knew

was to be revealed.

She did not even know! She dreaded

a beast and discovered

a god. But I

know, and hunger

to witness again the form

of mortal love itself.
. . . . 
(Read the rest HERE.)

Eagle Bringing cup to Psyche, 
by Benjamin West, American, 1738–1820

Mind ? Body

BY GREGORY DJANIKIAN

How do they survive, riven   

as they are, the one undoing   

the other's desire?   

Tell the body to outrun   

the mind, and the mind smirks,   

whispering too loudly 

this way   this way,   

blocking all the exits.   

And the body, luxurious   

sensualist by pool side or in bed,   

doesn't it hear the mind's   

impatient machinery ticking 

it's time   it's time? 

. . . . 

(Read the rest here.)

Greek letter 'psi', a symbol for psychology

A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body

BY ANDREW MARVELL

SOUL 

O who shall, from this dungeon, raise 

A soul enslav’d so many ways? 

With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands 

In feet, and manacled in hands; 

Here blinded with an eye, and there 

Deaf with the drumming of an ear; 

A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains 

Of nerves, and arteries, and veins; 

Tortur’d, besides each other part, 

In a vain head, and double heart. 

BODY 

O who shall me deliver whole 

From bonds of this tyrannic soul? 

Which, stretch’d upright, impales me so 

That mine own precipice I go; 

And warms and moves this needless frame, 

(A fever could but do the same) 

And, wanting where its spite to try, 

Has made me live to let me die. 

A body that could never rest, 

Since this ill spirit it possest. 

. . . . 

(Read the rest of this amazing poem HERE.)

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

                (Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Weapon.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Joy

“Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. 

It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.” 

― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service.  

I acted and behold, service was joy.” ― Rabindranath Tagore

Midweek Motif  ~  Joy

Wikipedia describes "joy" as "happiness" and says that: 

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.^[1]

That definition works for me.  Then the description continues:

A variety of biological, psychological, religious and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including positive psychology, are employing the scientific method to research questions about what "happiness" is, and how it might be attained.

How about that!?  

Your challenge in today's new poem is to give us an experience of joy.  Or you can "strive to define ... and identify its sources" poetically

Here are three poems to stimulate you.  

Happy New Year! 

excerpt from Joy

BY ALAN R. SHAPIRO

. . . . 

                   My lovely daughter—

walking me to the car

                                 to say goodbye   

the day I left

                      to keep watch at my brother’s

bedside—

               suddenly

                            singing “I

feel pretty, oh so

                            pretty”

                                        as she raised   

her arms up in a loose oval

                                        over her head   

and pirouetted all along the walk.

. . . .

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation)

excerpt from The Work of Happiness

BY MAY SARTON

I thought of happiness, how it is woven

Out of the silence in the empty house each day

And how it is not sudden and it is not given

But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.

No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.

No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,

But the tree is lifted by this inward work

And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.)

Happy as a Dog’s Tail

BY ANNA SWIR

Happy as something unimportant   

and free as a thing unimportant.   

As something no one prizes

and which does not prize itself.   

As something mocked by all

and which mocks at their mockery.   

As laughter without serious reason.   

As a yell able to outyell itself.   

Happy as no matter what,

as any no matter what.

Happy

as a dog’s tail.

Anna Swir, “Happy as a Dog’s Tail” from Talking to My Body, translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan, Copyright © 1996. Used [by PF with] permission of Copper Canyon Press, 

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

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(Next week, Sumana's Midweek Motif will be Food!)