Poetry by RUMI -- Only Breath
Rated • 16 reviews • poetry, video • youtube.com
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AirToob/poetry
Last seen: 4 hours ago
Brian is a 60 year old guy from Hitchin, England, UK
I like looking on the bright side. I relate very much to the Mediterranean extended-family, take-it-slow, money-isn't-everything outlook on life. I'm not a great cook but I like cooking, especially Mediterranean food. I'm interested in environmental issues. My main hobby is flying (on a PC simulator).
The people I admire most are those who see no end to pain, illness, grief or disability and who still retain a sense of humour, people who spend time making life better for others in any way, and people with toxic parents who have "broken the chain" in bringing up their own children.
If you like my pages you will probably also enjoy my web site - do visit!
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The Poetry Foundation : Find Poems and Poets. Discover...
Rated • 17 reviews • poetry • poetryfoundation.org
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Seanchai-pegs blog - StumbleUpon
Rated • 221 reviews • poetry, arts, gold stumbler • stumbleupon.com
My friend Peg has a very nice set of pages, on which you will find many kinds of art, poetry, a great sense of humour, and many good reviews of other stumblers. Also, she will tell you information about what you are looking at whenever she can!
It took quite a while to choose these examples! Click on each one for more information from Peg's blog.
"The Music" by the Austrian Art Nouveau artist Gustav Klimt.
"Sledding Party", by Sulamith Wulfing.
Peg has chosen some great poetry to go with this picture.
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Poet Seers - Poem of the Day & Poet...
Rated • 47 reviews • poetry, spirituality, life improvement • poetseers.org
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Desiderata - Max Ehrman & Poet...
Reviewed • 1 review • poetry, self improvement, life improvement • poetseers.org
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
- Max Ehrmann
Thanks for the picture (author unknown) and for the prose poem (a long-time favourite in our family) to my friends fredzepp (Mark) and Janine Flynn, respectively!
Max Ehrmann, it surprised me to find out, was an attorney from Indiana. More about him here.
If you like this poem, do check out the poetry site on which it appears. It offers "a range of spiritual and illuminating poetry from a diverse range of cultural and poetic traditions", and there is some wonderful stuff there.
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Whose shoes are these anyway?: "Praise Song for the Day"...
Rated • 1 review • poetry, politics, obama, inauguration • blogspot.com
[Inauguration day continued from above]
This is one of the best blog entries that I found for some of the great events at Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony, in particular these two:
Praise Song for the Day
Inauguration poem, written and recited by Elizabeth Alexander
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.
We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.
I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.
Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?
Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in that light.
(Thanks to snailrind for finding the text.)
And in the same blog entry you can find a video of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill and Gabriela Montero performing 'Air and Simple Gifts', composed by John Williams.
This piece was by turns sombre and uplifting. The 'Simple Gifts' theme that Aaron Copland used in Appalachian Spring said to me that against the current dark background, America will learn again to dance.
[Inauguration day continues below] 
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ShelSilverstein.com - the Official Site for Kids - Choose...
Rated • 28 reviews • childrens books, life values, humor, poetry, childhood • shelsilverstein.com
I found this poem on the wonderful pages of my friend succes (Renee). I haven't read Shel Silverstein for a very long time; when I went hunting for his work on the web I was reminded of what great stuff I had been missing.
Shel's official site for kids is an absolute joy, beautifully designed and full of brilliant animation and humour. I suspect that many adults (especially parents and teachers) will enjoy it as much as I did - and children will absolutely love it.
[More Shel Silverstein links]
[My "Book Corner" page]
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HubbleSite - Gallery
Rated • 79 reviews • astronomy, poetry, science • hubblesite.org
The Antennae Galaxies NGC 4038-4039
From the (literally) wonderful Hubble Telescope Site
To a Physicist
Have you ever heard the clang
Of a tiny particle, swollen by its speed
A trillionth of a trillionth of a grain of sand
Come round its last lap, and with frightful energy
Deal a reverberating sledge-hammer blow
Smashing the lock of Nature's secrets?
Have you ever suffered vertigo
From viewing octaves of infinity on either side
Where Space of an exactly calculable radius
Laughs emptily into never-ending distance?
Or to the inverse powers turn, and feel your soul
Plummet in the chasms of the infinitely small?
Or have you ever felt the unit pulse
That beats beneath the mightiest structures of the Universe
And on discovering (scarcely with surprise) the laws
That state what you are not allowed to know
Do you not scoot back to the nursery,
Ignore the blasts outside, and tinker happily with 'science' --
Thankful for childhood?
I wrote this when I was studying physics at university, somewhere around 1967, as I was beginning to appreciate what a truly awesome place the universe that we live in is, and how great were the minds that could comprehend even the shallow end of it.
Until now I have never been able to imagine who might be interested in reading it - but I figure that the best chance of finding such a person is on SU!
[Nikon Universcale (interactive illustration of the scale of the universe)]
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HubbleSite -- Out of the ordinary...out of this world.
Rated • 150 reviews • astronomy, poetry • hubblesite.org
