The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you:
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want:
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going in and out of the door
where the two worlds touch:
The door is right there, look, it's wide open!
Don't go back to sl
pond
Posted on by James Woodward
At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
so shining
Posted on by James Woodward
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Conjure something glowing
Take this day
You were born with hands for spinning
Talent for dreams and making them real
Roll the hours like yarn
Spin something that makes you feel full
And big and open to talk
Make this day your own square
In your own life quilt
So shining
outburst
Posted on by James Woodward
EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing;
And I was fill'd with such delight
As prison'd birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the settin
tristesse
Posted on by James Woodward
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sadness, goodbye
but hello again
you are the writing
on the ceiling
you are the writing
in her eyes
sadness, sadness, you're not that bad
I can eclipse and cloud you with a smile
welcome, again
you are the body of love
you are the power of love
love's uprising
beyond the
the scarlet sky
Posted on by James Woodward
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when a child leaves the breast
for solid food
it does not look back
it grows
the seed is nourished by earth
then spreads towards the sun
so: taste the scarlet sky
open towards wisdom
hide no longer in yourself
you came here like a star
that had no name
enter the night
morning rain
Posted on by James Woodward
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The dawn light. A light rain.
I hear it on the treetop leaves.
Then, the mist. The morning wind
blows it and the clouds away.
Now colours deepen, and a sense of grace:
the presence of water.
And then, across the landscape
the smell of morning rain.
Du Fu (712-77
luminous
Posted on by James Woodward
the day is remarkable
luminous, joyful
so easy, to live
with the taste of colour
love makes me laugh
and, at the last
moment, I open
my eyes.
  Paul Eluard, Serie
steel
Posted on by James Woodward
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Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot
shining
Posted on by James Woodward
I've tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I've tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.
I put it shining an
amazement is the thing
Posted on by James Woodward
The point is the seeing, the grace
beyond recognition, the ways
of the bird rising, unnamed, unknown,
beyond the range of language, beyond its noun.
Eyes open on growing, flying, happening,
and go on opening. Manifold, the world
dawns on unrecognizing, realizing eyes.
A
white flower
Posted on by James Woodward
 He said, I am with you always.
That means, when you look for God
 That God is the looking itself,
 Yes, and the thought of looking
And the you that thinks the thought
Always, already, all of it;
 There is no outside.
 A white flower grows in the silence
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WHAT SHOULD I FEAR?
Posted on by James Woodward
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  Let the immeasurable come.
  Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
  Let the wind turn in the trees,
  and the mystery hidden in the dirt
  swing through the air.
  How could I look at anything in this world
  and tremble, and grip my hands
delight
Posted on by James Woodward
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All the others translate: the painter sketches
A visible world to love or reject;
Rummaging into his living, the poet fetches
The images out that hurt and connect.
From Life to Art by painstaking adaption
Relying on us to cover the rift;
Only your notes are pure contr
radiant
Posted on by James Woodward
this blessing
God's love
calls us
to that elsewhere world
which only lovers
eyes alight, eyes aflame
can see at all.
only those who have
self surrendered:
once, they were flecks of fire;
now, they are
the radiant sun.
Rumi
the beauty of the heart
Posted on by James Woodward
The beauty of the heart
is what will remain:
it brings to your lips
the water of life.
in truth, it is the water,
and the jug that holds it,
and the lips that drink.
All three become one when
your talismans are broken.
This is a oneness you won't know
by thinking abo
The peace of wild things
Posted on by James Woodward
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When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of 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
acting
Posted on by James Woodward
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Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.
When your truth forsakes its shyness,
When your fears surrender to your strengths,
You will begin to experience
That all existence
Is a teeming sea of infinite life.
In a handful of ocean water
You could not count all the fine
Love
Posted on by James Woodward
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All that there is, is love. Nothing else is, but love.
 Love is the force that fires the stars,
 that drives our lives from seed to sepulchre,
 from edge to edge,
from end to end.
smile
Posted on by James Woodward
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One day people will touch and talk perhaps easily,
And loving be natural as breathing and warm as sunlight,
 And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
