Kaleidoscope

He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise.

                        Thanks to Lao Tze and to http://quotations.about.com

This is a beautiful poem by Rumi. Thanks to Rumi and to www.poetseers.org. What came to my mind first was that the idea of the beloved is all, then I realized how the Beloved is all and is a living thing. That is left to your imagination as well! Enjoy reading the poem. Thanks to www.wikipedia.org for the image of Rose.

When the rose is gone and the garden faded
you will no longer hear the nightingale's song.
The Beloved is all; the lover just a veil. 
The Beloved is living; the lover a dead thing.
If love withholds its strengthening care,
the lover is left like a bird without care,
the lover is left like a bird without wings.
How will I be awake and aware
if the light of the Beloved is absent?
Love wills that this Word be brought forth

There can be no friendship between cowards, or cowards and brave men.  

 - Tribute to Mahatma Gandhiji for the quote and to www.mkgandhi.org for making Gandhiji's work so easily available.

 An Irish Airman forsees his death

This is a simple & eloquent poem by W.B.Yeats. Tribute to Yeats for his work and thanks to www.poetseers.com for the online version.

Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

           - Tribute to Alan Cohen and Thanks to www.wisdomquotes.com. Thanks to Wikipedia for the 'Lion' photo.

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.

Thanks to Voltaire and to www.famous-quotes-and-quotations.com

What is faith worth if it is not translated into action?

Tribute to Gandhiji and thanks to www.mkgandhi.org for the online version + Photo.

One of my most favorite poems is "IF" by Rudyard Kipling. But for expressions like "IF", we would not have known what it means to live with higher values. Tribute to Rudyard Kipling for this amazing master piece.Thanks to www.todayinliterature.com for his photograph. 

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling 

Beautiful monologue poem by a gardener! Tribute to Tagore for such an imaginative and wonderful poem. Thanks to www.indolink.com for the online version and to www.calcuttaweb.com for Tagore's image.

If you would have it so,
I will end my singing.

If it sets your heart aflutter,
I will take away my eyes from your face.

If it suddenly startles you in your walk,
I will step aside and take another path.

If it confuses you in your flower-weaving,
I will shun your lonely garden.

If it makes the water wanton and wild,
I will not row my boat by your bank.

 Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

Thanks to Thomas Alva Edison and to http://quotations.about.com

This is a beautiful poem by T.S.Eliot, rich in metaphors.  

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair--
Lean on a garden urn--
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair--
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise--
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight and the noon's repose.

Tribute to T.S.Eliot and thanks to www.poetseers.org

Mary Oliver's poems are very simple and heart touching. "The Journey" is no exception.

Tribute to Mary Oliver for this wonderful piece of work. Thanks to www.allspirit.co.uk for the online version. 

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness but it is greatness.

Thanks to George Bernard Shaw & www.thinkexist.com

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