Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Alice Walker, Expect nothing
A Blessing
Don’t try so hard
It comes in a shiver sometimes,
Sometimes in a winter window pane,
Wild with the unseeable
Frozen there in ice:
The shapes above clouds,
The score and the libretto of wind,
The plot of waves.
Sometimes it falls, a flake at a time,
Into your life
While you are asleep.
Sometimes it comes as a winter blankness,
Waiting for storm, or ice or thaw,
Or even wind.
Then the still air groans,
And the trees crack,
The swamp shudders,
And the woods thrill.
Sometimes it comes when you least
Expect it. And sometimesIt doesnt.
Quiet, still, no voice (even small),
No whirlwind, no reply; no burning,
Just a bare winter bush.
This is God, too.
The space between stars
Where noise goes to die,
The moment in the movement of the soul,
When it all seems to stop,
Seized up. This is true,too.
Ice is, also.
And dormancy.
And I don’t mean the stirring
Of seeds beneath the snow,
But that place between
And that moment before.
And I don’t mean a lighting bolt,
But what it passes through,
I don’t mean a dream,
But dumb sleep.
“Not a thing”, is something.
After the end
And before the beginning
Is time too.
Let it alone
Dont try so hard
This is God too
All of you is.
S.Philbrick