The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry

Submitted by:
Arun Rachamadugu who says “I find myself revisiting this poem when I’m overwhelmed or underwhelmed with everything that’s going on.”

Postscript:
This poem snuck up on me, with its conversational beginning that builds into these lovely images of nature, beauty, and peace and culminates in grace. The lines that entirely took my breath away were “I feel above me the day-blind stars/waiting with their light.”
You can read more about Wendell Berry here.

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Published:
June 16, 2012 – 08:00
Author:
By Madhu
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I Am Much Too Alone in This World

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everyday jug,
like my mother’s face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

– Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Annemarie S. Kidder

Postscript:
I love Rilke’s voice in this poem, the way he describes what he wants and how he wants it.
You can read more about Rilke here.
You can read some of his writing about art, life and poetry here.

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Published:
June 15, 2012 – 10:56
Author:
By Madhu
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1 Comment

The Secret

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don’t know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can’t find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

– Denise Levertov

Postscript:
A lovely poem, about young girls and an epiphany that, while transient, speaks of so much hope. That there can be epiphanies, that they may be forgotten but it does not matter, because it permits you to have the joy of finding them again, in other places. To be surprised by joy.
And, of course, that the secret to life is to be found in poetry, a particular line in a particular poem – I cannot disagree.

You can read about Denise Levertov here and here.

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Published:
June 14, 2012 – 08:00
Author:
By Madhu
Categories:
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2 Comments