Gifts

I gave my first love laughter,

I gave my second tears,

I gave my third love silence,

Through all the years.

My first love gave me singing,

My second eyes to see,

But oh, it was my third love

Who gave my soul to me.

SARAH TEASDALE

The Prophet On Pain

And a woman spoke, saying, “Tell us of Pain.”
And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

KAHLIL GIBRAN

Eagles and Storm

Did you know that an eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks? The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm.

When the storms of life come upon us - and all of us will experience them - we can rise above them by setting our minds and our belief toward God. The storms do not have to overcome us. We can allow God's power to lift us above them. God enables us to ride the winds of the storm that bring sickness, tragedy, failure and disappointment in our lives. We can soar above the storm. Remember, it is not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it is how we handle them.

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms,
Numberless times,
In life after life, in age after age forever.
My spell-bound heart has made and re-made the necklace of songs
That you take as a gift, wear around your neck in
Your many forms
In life after life, in age after age forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love,
Its age old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together,
As I stare on and on into the past,
In the end you emerge
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount
At the heart of time love of one for another.
We played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love, but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you,
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life,
The memories of all of loves merging with this one love of ours-
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

Rabindranath Thakur, 1861-1941

The Boat of Time Sails On

The sky calls me,

The wind calls me,

The moon and the stars call me.

The green and the dense groves call me,

The dance of the fountain calls me,

Smiles call me, tears call me.

A faint melody calls me.

The morn, noon and eve call me.

Everyone is searching for a playmate,

Everyone is calling me, “Come, come!”

One voice, one sound, all around.

Alas, the Boat of Time sails on.

by Sri Chinmoy

Love Poems

Was it really you I saw,

Or is this joy

I still feel

Only a dream?

~Teishin

In this dream world

We doze and talk of dreams--

Dream, dream on,

As much as you wish.

~Ryokan