Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Safety

“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where 
we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
― Maya Angelou, All God's Children . . .

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 “Would you give up the craft of your hands, and the passion of your heart, and the hunger of your mind, to buy safety?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore 

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“When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat”

― bell hooks 

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Midweek Motif ~ Safety

Do we have or offer safety?  A reasonable amount of safety? Or maybe a"feeling of safety"?

Mostly, I live as if I have safety, spinning an atmosphere of safety around me, inviting others in. 

Your Challenge: In a new poem, give us an experience of safety or lack of safety or a change from one to the other. 

Safety fence on side of footpath, Abingworth, photo by Dave Spicer

 Persephone, Falling

Rita Dove - 1952-

One narcissus among the ordinary beautiful

flowers, one unlike all the others!  She pulled,

stooped to pull harder—

when, sprung out of the earth

on his glittering terrible

carriage, he claimed his due.

It is finished.  No one heard her.

No one!  She had strayed from the herd.

(Remember: go straight to school.

This is important, stop fooling around!

Don't answer to strangers.  Stick

with your playmates.  Keep your eyes down.)

This is how easily the pit

opens.  This is how one foot sinks into the ground.

"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd"

By Walt Whitman

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,

Whispering, I love you, before long I die,

I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,

For I could not die till I once look’d on you,

For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.

Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe,

Return in peace to the ocean my love,

I too am part of that ocean, my love, we are not so much separated,

Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!

But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,

As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;

Be not impatient – a little space – know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land,

Every day at sundown for your dear sake, my love.

"Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas

Yom Kippur 1984

By Adrienne Rich

 

           I drew solitude over me, on the long shore.
                                        —Robinson Jeffers, “Prelude”

          For whoever does not afflict his soul through this day, shall be
          cut off from his people.
                                                                           —Leviticus 23:29

What is a Jew in solitude?

What would it mean not to feel lonely or afraid

far from your own or those you have called your own?

What is a woman in solitude:   a queer woman or man?

In the empty street, on the empty beach, in the desert

what in this world as it is can solitude mean?

The glassy, concrete octagon suspended from the cliffs

with its electric gate, its perfected privacy

is not what I mean

the pick-up with a gun parked at a turn-out in Utah or the Golan Heights

is not what I mean

the poet’s tower facing the western ocean, acres of forest planted to the east, the woman reading in the cabin, her attack dog suddenly risen

is not what I mean

Three thousand miles from what I once called home

I open a book searching for some lines I remember

about flowers, something to bind me to this coast as lilacs in the dooryard once

bound me back there—yes, lupines on a burnt mountainside,

something that bloomed and faded and was written down

in the poet’s book, forever:

Opening the poet’s book

I find the hatred in the poet’s heart: . . . the hateful-eyed

and human-bodied are all about me: you that love multitude may have them

Robinson Jeffers, multitude

is the blur flung by distinct forms against these landward valleys

and the farms that run down to the sea; the lupines

are multitude, and the torched poppies, the grey Pacific unrolling its scrolls of surf,

and the separate persons, stooped

over sewing machines in denim dust, bent under the shattering skies of harvest

who sleep by shifts in never-empty beds have their various dreams

Hands that pick, pack, steam, stitch, strip, stuff, shell, scrape, scour, belong to a brain like no other

Must I argue the love of multitude in the blur or defend

a solitude of barbed-wire and searchlights, the survivalist’s final solution, have I a choice?
. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE.)

🧷🧷🧷

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

Next week, Sumana's prompt will be "Televised." 

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Enlightenment

Many spiritual teachers - in Buddhism, in Islam - have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.

bell hooks

To  conquer oneself is a greater task 

than conquering others.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Martin Luther King Jr. (Famous Quotes)

I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could. 
Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi Quotes)

We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
Lord Buddha (Buddha Quotes)

Midweek Motif ~ Enlightenment

So much has been said about enlightenment that maybe there is nothing more to say.  But I don't believe it.  In big ways and in small, we all have some experience with enlightenment.  What can you say?  

Your Challenge:  Write a poem containing a nugget of enlightenment.  

~

Excerpt from Augeries of Innocence BY William Blake Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro’ the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine. . . . .   (lines 56-62; read the rest HERE at Bartleby.com)

The CrystalGazer

BY  Sara Teasdale

I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
Fusing them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.

I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,
Watching the future come and the present go,
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In restless self-importance to and fro. 

Admit Something

BY Hafiz

Everyone you see, you say to them,

Love me.

Of course you do not do this out loud;

Otherwise,

Someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this,

This great pull in us

To connect.

Why not become the one

Who lives with a full moon in each eye

That is always saying,

With that sweet moon language,

What every other eye in this world

Is dying to Hear.

~

For those who are new to Poets United: 

• Post your enlightenment poem on your site, and then link it here.
• Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
• If you use a picture include its link.  
• Please leave a comment here and visit and comment on our poems.

(Our next Midweek Motif is "foolishness")

Good luck to all of you who are writing a poem a day during April.  I am using prompts from Poetic Asides, NaPoWriMo, Magaly Guerrero  and Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.  We'd love to know if you are attempting the challenge.  Please share links to the sites you are using for prompts and community during the challenge. 

Thanks!  ~Susan for Poets United

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Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Health

“We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.” 
― Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Flag of the WHO (World Health Organization).

“All too often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, 

to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget.  In actuality, 

when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response 

to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm's way.” 

― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“We still counted happiness and health and love and luck 

Médecins Sans Frontières

and beautiful children as "ordinary blessings.” 
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights

Midweek Motif ~ Health

Your challenge: Center a poem on 

health ~ even if you must begin with disease. 

PS: Today is also World Toilet Day.  Yes.  Feel free to write to a motif of toilets or lack of them.   Many in the world have no toilets or sanitary systems.  Water Aid.org  (link) is doing something about it.  Here's a song:  

To a Marsh Hawk in Spring

BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU

There is health in thy gray wing,

Health of nature’s furnishing.

Say, thou modern-winged antique,

Was thy mistress ever sick?

In each heaving of thy wing

Thou dost health and leisure bring,

Thou dost waive disease and pain

And resume new life again.

Progressive Health

BY CARL DENNIS

We here at Progressive Health would like to thank you   

For being one of the generous few who've promised   

To bequeath your vital organs to whoever needs them.   

Now we'd like to give you the opportunity   

To step out far in front of the other donors   

By acting a little sooner than you expected, 

. . . .

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.) 

For those who are new to Poets United:  

1. Post your new health poem on your site, and then link it here.
2. If you use a picture include its link.  
3. Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
4. Leave a comment here.
5. Visit and comment on our poems.

(Next week's Midweek Motif is Gratitude)

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