life

The Song of the Women

Gill Washington Love, Poems, Rudyard Kipling, Spirituality , , , 0 Comment

 

By Rudyard Kipling

How shall she know the worship we would do her?
The walls are high, and she is very far.
How shall the woman’s message reach unto her
Above the tumult of the packed bazaar?
Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing,
Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing.

Go forth across the fields we may not roam in,
Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city,
To whatsoe’er fair place she hath her home in,
Who dowered us with walth of love and pity.
Out of our shadow pass, and seek her singing —
“I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing.”

Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her,
But old in grief, and very wise in tears;
Say that we, being desolate, entreat her
That she forget us not in after years;
For we have seen the light, and it were grievous
To dim that dawning if our lady leave us.

By life that ebbed with none to stanch the failing
By Love’s sad harvest garnered in the spring,
When Love in ignorance wept unavailing
O’er young buds dead before their blossoming;
By all the grey owl watched, the pale moon viewed,
In past grim years, declare our gratitude!

By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not,
By fits that found no favor in their sight,
By faces bent above the babe that stirred not,
By nameless horrors of the stifling night;
By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover,
Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her!

If she have sent her servants in our pain
If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword;
If she have given back our sick again.
And to the breast the wakling lips restored,
Is it a little thing that she has wrought?
Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought.

Go forth, O wind, our message on thy wings,
And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee speed,
In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings,
Who have been helpen by ther in their need.
All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat
Shall be a tasselled floorcloth to thy feet.

Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest!
Loud-voiced ambassador, from sea to sea
Proclaim the blessing, mainfold, confessed.
Of those in darkness by her hand set free.
Then very softly to her presence move,
And whisper: “Lady, lo, they know and love!”

 

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Song Of The Wave

Gill Washington Kahlil Gibran, Poems, Spirituality , , , 0 Comment

Kahlil Gibran

I and the shore are lovers :
The wind unites us and separates us.
I come from beyond the twilight
to merge the silver of my foam with the gold of its sand;
And I cool its burning heart with my moisture.
At dawn’s coming I read passion’s law to my beloved,
And he draws me to his breast.
At even I chant the prayer of longing,
And he embraces me.
I am fretful and without rest,
But my loved one is the friend of patience.
Comes the ebb and I embrace my love;
It flows, and I am fallen at his feet.

How I danced around the daughters of the sea
When they rose up from the depths
To sit upon the rocks
And behold the stars !
How I hearkened to the lover
Protesting his passion to a comely maid :
I did help him with sighing and moaning.
How I consorted with the rocks when they were
cold and still,
And caressed them, laughing, when they smiled not !

How I delivered bodies from the deep
And brought them to the living !
In what measure did I steal from the depths
Pearls, and gave to the daughters of beauty!

In the still night when all created things embrace
the phantom of sleep, I alone am awake, now
singing, now sighing.
Alas, wakefulness has destroyed me, but I am a
lover and the truth of Love is awakening.
Behold my life;
As I have lived, so shall I die.

 

Her final summer…

Gill Washington Emily Dickinson, Poems , , 0 Comment

 

Emily Dickinson

Her final summer was it,
And yet we guessed it not;
If tenderer industriousness
Pervaded her, we thought

A further force of life
Developed from within,–
When Death lit all the shortness up,
And made the hurry plain.

We wondered at our blindness,–
When nothing was to see
But her Carrara guide-post,–
At our stupidity

When, duller than our dulness,
The busy darling lay,
So busy was she, finishing,
So leisurely were we!

I Was Again Beside Thee in a Dream

Gill Washington Mathilde Blind, Poems , , 0 Comment

 

Mathilde Blind

I WAS again beside thee in a dream:
Earth was so beautiful, the moon was shining;
The muffled voice of many a cataract stream
Came like a love-song, as, with arms entwining,
Our hearts were mixed in unison supreme.

The wind lay spell-bound in each pillared pine,
The tasselled larches had no sound or motion,
As my whole life was sinking into thine–
Sinking into a deep, unfathomed ocean
Of infinite love–uncircumscribed, divine.

Night held her breath, it seemed, with all her stars:
Eternal eyes that watched in mute compassion
Our little lives o’erleap their mortal bars,
Fused in the fulness of immortal passion,
A passion as immortal as the stars.

There was no longer any thee or me;
No sense of self, no wish or incompleteness
The moment, rounded to Eternity,
Annihilated time’s destructive fleetness:
For all but love itself had ceased to be.

Your Music

Gill Washington Hydeh Aubon, Poems , , 0 Comment

You sat on the wooden chair
with your back to the window
and your cello in your hands.
Outside, the spring breeze
was swaying the tree branches
with green leaves ; Green as a
new life, new beginning.
A new beginning, always for
the first time.
The sun rays were embracing
the blue sky, the live trees and
the restless birds like a mother.
Earth- Mother with her
loving velvety embrace.
My gaze traveling
like a restless bird
from the outside-pouring life
to you.
You, with your eyes closed playing
so beautifully, sadly and passionately.
You were not aware of
the string of my dreams that
disappeared in the sky with
your music.
You were not aware that
I saw the trickle that ran down
your pale cheeks.
What were you seeing
with your closed eyes?
Who and what were you
playing for?
Your hands played
the unsaid and my hands
ached to write down this
fleeting moment.
The fleeting moment
that can never be framed
in anything.
Never, not ever.

Hydeh Aubon (5/1/08)

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