LIFE LIKE A RAINBOW

There is nothing more beautiful than a rainbow
But it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow.
If life is to be rounded and many-colored like the rainbow,
Both joy and sorrow must come to it.
Those who have never known
Anything but prosperity and pleasure
Become hard and shallow,
But those whose prosperity
Has been mixed with adversity
Become kind and gracious.

~Anonymous~

OCEAN

By Samantha C. Lourie

The ocean is such a romantic force in nature;
Waltzing with the shores of the land,
Every moment of the day.

Singing its song to the moon
Through the daytime and the night.
It is never ceasing in love

Even as the moon sleeps,
Still it's lullaby of love delights

The children that come to visit it,
And rests the weary hearts of the adults,
As it woos the sands until the moon
Comes out to play again.

~Butterflies and Pebbles

THE STRENGTH TO JOURNEY

By Yesu Ben

Put down your pack therefore my friend
the road is long but it shall end,
and drink some wine, partake of bread
a pillow where to rest your head.
And think not of the weary things
nor all the misery they bring
Always remember that very soon
come this December or next June
the breeze shall blow again and soon
You will find that you have regained
the strength to journey once again.

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⊰ღ POEMS *FOR ♥*✿*•♥ INSPIRATION ღ⊱
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Design borrowed from the Garden of Grace

WE ARE ALL CHILDREN

I am convinced

That if all mankind

Could only gather together

In one circle

Arms on each other's shoulders

And dance, laugh and cry

together

Then much

of the tension and burden

of life

Would fall away

In the knowledge that

We are all children

Needing and wanting

Each other's

Comfort and

Understanding

We are all children

Searching for love.

By Leonard Nimoy

Source: FB/NNie Que

WRITE IT IN YOUR HEART

Write it on your heart

that every day is the best day in the year.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.

Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit

to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

STRANGE MOON MAGIC

By Ipe S. Inspired

Tonight it seems to appear
The strangest moon in many years

The darkness turned brightest

To the earth this moon is nearest

A mysterious sight, very puzzling
Its peculiar light, most perplexing
Unlike the blue moon full of cosmic
This super moon intuits strange magic

Gravitational pull mixes moods
Extreme personas now into groove
Two imperfections become perfect
From hate to love without much defect

Weird to the sense this heavenly body
Making me feel missing somebody
Unusual it may be, the ugly and the beauty
Fall for each other, inexplicably

Uncanny souls from different scenic
Engaged by this strange moon magic
Full of love these living spirits
Feeling intimacy without any limits

Blue Moon

Source: FB/Epimaco Densing III

THE SAD TALE of THE SUNFLOWER

By George Daniel Anos

I turned my gaze,

your precious way, 

dew drops glist'ning,

with brilliant rays
.
.


I traced your path,

as you soared higher, 

my soul elating,

and filled with wonder
.
.

I bathed full,

your glorious noon,

such blissful warmth,

as my heart swooned
.
.


But heed you must,

the Western sky,

the tempting call,

you can't defy 
.
.


So thence began,

that bleak descent,
a thing I can't,

help but resent 
.
.

I know that days,

give way to gloom,

still I feel,
this sense of doom
.
.


I wail against,

this coming darkness,

from twilights spring,

such wretched sadness 
.
.


My nights are filled, 

with tearful moans,

unending till,

the break of dawn. 
.
.


(My daughter Steph gave me the seeds of these sunflowers. Well, well, they really follow the sun after all.)

Source: FB/Author

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⊰ღ POEMS *FOR ♥*✿*•♥ INSPIRATION ღ⊱
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Design borrowed from the Garden of Grace

I WILL NOT CEASE THIS FIGHT

By Yesu Ben
June 16, 2018

Yes, it has been four hundred years
when first those pale skinned men with swords
beheld this pristine land so dear
and walked on it as kings and lords. 

But did not our forefathers with

inferior puny bamboo spears

die to repel these ravagers
who came to steal and instill fear.
I shall today with words and pen
rise forth to dispute their desires.

Let Life assist me,
Love unfold

to burn them with undying fire.
I will not cease this war, this fight
Nor will my resolve become thin.

Until the change has come to sight
to free my blessed Philippines.

Source: FB

A FREE SHOW

By Yesu Ben

I seek to find in long hours of ennui
A routine dance over a shaded glen;
The show will start at ten and end at three;
The stage is set, the mic tests now and then.
I feel so well-heeled watching from this floor
Surmising that perhaps that eager bunch
Of huddled birds, too tired to hunt and soar,
Have tickets saved from those days skipping lunch.
The ballet has begun and all is hushed
The gust that teased the leaves has settled down,
And rain begins to drop making clouds blush
And waltz in jazzy hues of purple brown.
The dances we’ve been used to won’t compare
To this of Life, exquisite and priced fair.

Source: FB

ON A BEACH

By Thomas Plummer
March 2, 2018

Walking alone on a beach
Wind, squawking birds, deliciously warm soft sand under foot and quiet time to think.
Regrets? No!

Every mistake has been mine and mine alone.
Would I have done it differently if given another chance? 
No, the mistakes and misadventures are what has shaped my life and made me who I am.

Could I have done it better? We all could do it perfect if we knew 
then we were doing it wrong.
But we didn't, and every choice we made, whether the bad ones that made us lay in bed buried under blankets too mentally destroyed to even get up that day, or the rare good ones where for just a day we believed we had it all and knew it,
defined the journey of our life.

Staring down a beach that never ends that just disappears into the horizon is your life.
Eyes forward, constantly moving down a path only you can walk, never looking back or ever concerned about the beach you have already tread.

There is a rhythm of life if you seek 
the quiet that lets you hear the beat.
Every person has their own path in the sand, but most of us work much too hard trying to walk in other's footsteps rather than accept who we are and what we can be.

The beach on a peaceful morning is a perfect representation of what it means to not be perfect.
My life has been nothing more but the accumulation of choices I have made.
Some good, but many bad, and even a few that have hurt the ones around me.
But who I am, and who I can still be, was always my choice.

But I wouldn't change a thing and I spend no time looking back at the walk in the sand I have already made.
My path is always forward. 
There will be other mistakes. 
There are adventures waiting for me further down that beach.
But good, bad or ugly, it has been all me, and my choice, and regrets slow down my pace forward and keep me from getting around that next curve on the beach that reveals my future.

You are who you are because 
of the choices you have made in life.
If your life isn't what you want, then you need to realize you are the one on that beach walk.
You are alone in the thought that no matter how it turns out you had a choice, you made your decision and who you are today is the combination of all those choices.

Eyes forward down the beach,
there are always better choices tomorrow yet to be made.

Source: FB

PRAY FOR THEM

By Patience Strong

Burwood, March 4, 2019

If you're feeling weary with your burden and the strain -
Think of those compelled to lie upon a bed of pain.
Call to mind the sufferers who cannot work or play -
Shut apart from all that makes life rich and good and gay.

Not for them the stir and struggle of a busy day -
The adventures and encounters of the crowded way ...
Pray for them, and grateful be that you are on your feet -
With duties to be tackled, work to do and friends to meet.

FEED THY SOUL

"If thou of fortune be bereft, 

and in thy store there be but left

two loaves, sell one, and with the 
dole,
buy hyacinths to feed thy soul."
~John Greenleaf Whittier

THE YOUTH OF AGE

(Praying at Seventy)

All my life, it now seems to me,
I have had clear sight of God.
Like currents of air, spirits gliding upward,
I have been in flight.

The clouds form and reform,
they race across the sky and swell in stillness, all aglowing,
and they say: Remember God!
As my physical eyes fail,
my inner eyes open to wonder.

As my bodily ears strain,
my God-antennae are instantly alert
and announce: She, your God, is here.
As my brain is sometimes befuddled,
my heart leaps in elation at the robin's antics.

As my feet stumble, my spirit races ahead:
Come on, Come on, there is so much more.
As my hands grow numb, and sometimes sore,
my touch grows softer, sensitive, more grace-filled.

My senses may dim,
but my whole being seems alive
and shouts: 'Live it up.'
I seem now to be bathed in light.

I say to myself:
'Now I am living in the shadow of the Living Light'.
I used to worry about sin;
now I have no time for this.

When I pick up the Scriptures,
the light streams out at me.
The words tremble with life,
and shout: 'Abundant Life.'

My memory is memorising:
all the strands are being drawn together.
I can now say:
'I see, I hear, I know, I smile, I love.'

I see new words, hear new music, know in deeper tones,
I smile at my dreams, I love with the trees.

I see bright flames coming from human lips.
I see rippling water flowing in endless light.
No container on earth can keep this flowing.

All my life is now here in the palm of my hand:
I am child, maid, woman, crone.
I live it all, now more fully.

How can I now describe my lightsome life?

I see
I yearn yet.

~Hildegarde of Bingen

Source: FB via DagMar Dederichs

A DANCER'S DILEMMA

Life is like a dance.
It goes with music.
With beats and rhytmn
With passion and breathing
With tempo, climax and bang!
But what if you miss the steps?
And what if someone made you?
And what if that someone is an intruder?
Instead of your dance partner?
And what if you're lost in the sequence?
So that you find yourself out of synchrony?
And caught in the swirl of someone's intrusion?
Will you continue to dance alone?
Or would you rather re-invent your steps?
And re-create your own dance?
A baffled dancer tells us her story.

@Leah C. Dancel
15 January 2019
💐💐💐

THE LAST TRAIN

By Crispulo Bacud Tappa

The old man heard the call,
trumpeted to one and all.
The last departing train rolls

as stars appear when night falls.
Citizens scurried around,

inched their way to the platform.
Some laden with heavy loads,
the old man in dapper clothes,
came with just nothing,

for a last trip that was foretold.
The last train rolled by, 

almost full to its brim,
hooted for everyone to hear.

The old puny man edged-in,

not wanting to be left behind,

Travellers with heavy loads,
with no space big enough

for their worldly finds,

remorsefully trundled back,

missing this one last train,

bound for its destination 

where the last train stops,

on its last trip as God ordained,

where trumpets blared,
and a choir of angels

sang a glorious welcome song.

January 29, 2019

💐💐💐

LOVE OF FRIENDS

"Man strives for glory, honour, fame
That all the world may know his name.
Amasses wealth by brain and hand;
Becomes a power in the land.
But when he nears the end of life
And looks back o'er the years of strife,
He finds that happiness depends
On none of these, but love of friends."
~Anonymous

MY GARDEN OF PRAYER

By Helen Steiner Rice

My garden beautifies my yard
and adds fragrance to the air ...
But it is also MY CATHEDRAL
and MY QUIET PLACE OF PRAYER
So little do we realise
that "THE GLORY and THE POWER"
Of HE who made the UNIVERSE
lies hidden in a flower.

Source: Somebody Loves You

Note:
A very special pre-loved, hand-me-down gift for myself I bought from St. Vinnies Op Shop in Bathurst on my way home from Orange with Lily and JP
September 1, 2018

THIS IS JUST A RESTING PLACE

By Helen Steiner Rice

Sometimes the road of life seems long
as we travel through the years
And, with a heart that's broken
and eyes brimful of tears,
We falter in our weariness
and sink beside tge way,
But GOD leans down and whispers,
"Child, there'll be another day" -
And the road will grow much smoother
and much easier to face,
So do not be disheartened-
this is just a "RESTING PLACE."

Source: Somebody Loves You

Note:
A very special pre-loved, hand-me-down gift for myself I bought from St. Vinnies Op Shop in Bathurst on my way home from Orange with Lily and JP, September 1, 2018

WHERE DO YOU GO?

By Shadowlands

Where do you go?
When you lay down your head,
The eyes have drawn their curtains,
And your lights have been turned off.
You're all cocooned in linen
And silence reigns supreme.
When the ghosts of memories past
Play hopscotch with your senses?

Where do you go?
When reality has gone on vacation
And your visions are a collection of moments,
Lost through time and space.
When fatigue is like a lead blanket,
The body attempts to heal it's wounds
And the mind tries to tranquilize
The events of the day?

Where do you go?
When the lights shine on faint recollections
And private thoughts gently cascade
From an overflowing fountain
Of a vivid imagination.
Do you know the path you take.
Or is the destination just as whimsical
As the journey you create
Through your mind's deepest catacombs?
Where do you go indeed?

Source: FB
26 May 2016

A VEIL OF STARS IN THE SKY

By Patrick Graven

Our fire could not be tamed with the wind,
And the wind couldn't be suppressed by the flames,
As the connection of the light with the dark that blend,
Led to a light that would forever remain.

Our lives become real when our dreams come alive,
Darkness fades and transforms into light,
As the sun and moon begin to entwine,
Seasons change like the colours in the sky.

The clouds descend and the oceans rise,
When the twilight changes into a new sunrise,
Stars begin to fade into celestial skies,
This feeling that lives as days pass by.

We voyage through the journeys of our soul,
Living in our own world,
Feeling the meaning of everything nourishing,
A momentary beauty flowing and flourishing.

We see an ocean filled with mystery up to the horizon,
Filled with depths with a new dawn rising,
We voyage among our lives of havens fulfilled in infinity,
As waves drifting through the sea fulfilled for eternity.

Our souls move as the breeze,
A strong current in rapture of the waves,
We make our way through boundless space,
And fly far away from this place.

Purifying in the celestial air,
Inhale the earth of these limpid regions,
Nourish everything in all that we care,
In bloom with the changing seasons.

Here we find in our voices rhyme,
Within this ocean of time,
And all of this we feel and see,
Is a new dawn to be.

Through this world that we live,
An ocean rising from deep within,
A sparkle of light in our eyes,
Mirrored as a veil of stars in the sky.

Source: FB

BREAK NOT MY CUP

Break not my cup when I am gone,
Let another's thirst be quenched from it.
Nor burn my favourite walking stick
That someone also frailed might lean on it.
Let the useful bits which for now surround me
Pass into the care of others,
Who may know nothing of their history
But might also grow to hold them dear.
For truly we never really own -
What comes to us is to accompany us
For the brief while we are here.

By Michael A. Taylor

Source: Benson Bautista

INSPIRATION IS EVERYTHING

"You are the books you read, the films you watch,
the music you listen to, the people you meet,
the dreams you have, the conversations you engage in.
You are what you take from these.
You are the sound of the ocean, the breath of fresh air,
the brightest light and the darkest corner.

You are a collective of every experience you have had in your life.
You are every single second of every single day.
So drown yourself in a sea of knowledge and existence.
Let the words run through your veins and let the colors fill your mind
until there is nothing left to do but explode.
There are no wrong answers.
Inspiration is everything.
Sit back, relax, and take it all in.

Now, go out and create something.”

~Jac Vanek

Source: Butterflies and Pebbles

THE WAKING

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

~Theodore Roethke
(The Collected Poems)

SALUTATION TO THE DAWN

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

~Kalidasa

Bio:

"The great Sanskrit poet became proverbial for his literary flair for similes and metaphors: Upamano Kalidasasya. (The 'Raghu Vamsa' is epic in verse.)" ~A. Madhavan

Source: Poem Hunter

NOT TO SEEK LOVE

"Our task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
Tand rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

The wound is the place
where the Light enters you.

Stop acting so small.
You are the universe in ecstatic motion.

Let yourself be silently drawn by
the stronger pull of what you really love.

The cure for pain is in the pain.
When you do things from your soul,
you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
As you start to walk out on the way,
the way appears."

~Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī