Kaleidoscope

After a race of activities today, where I involved myself, which seemed purposeful at the begining and where they ended up helping me raise questions on why they were purposeful after I complete it, I thought that I could read some poetry. Mary Oliver is who came to my mind. Here goes the poem, thanks to Mary Oliver- it is a thoughtful, refreshing poem.Thanks to Wikipedia for the image.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it, boldness has genius, power, and magic in it

- Thanks to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 

   Thanks to Wikipedia for the image 

Thanks to Rabindranath Tagore.You may find this poem intriguing.

Who is This?

I came out alone on my way to my tryst.

But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger;

he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame;

but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company.

All high beauty has a moral element in it, and I find the antique sculpture as ethical as Marcus Antoninus: and the beauty ever in proportion to the depth of thought.

      - Thanks to Ralph Waldo Emerson.Thanks to Wikipedia for online version of his quote and image.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Thanks to Emily Dickinson for the poem. Thanks to Wikipedia for the image.

Man is the maker of his own destiny, and I therefore ask you to become makers of your own destiny.

       - Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi and www.mkgandhi.org

This poem by Tagore captivates my heart and refreshes my being every now and then. I might have published this already twice in this blog, and yet again a refresh. You will surely enjoy this poem.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Tribute to Tagore for such an enlightening work. Thanks to wikipedia for the 'sunrise' image.

Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long, although it is within the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man's power to live long.

                Thanks to Seneca, Roman philosopher mid-1st century AD.

Thanks to www.wikipedia.org for the image and quote.

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

 - Thanks to Rabindranath Tagore

“hatred paralyses life; LOVE RELEASES IT; hatred confuses life; LOVE HARMONIZES IT; hatred darkens life; LOVE ILLUMINATES IT"

                  - Martin Luther King Jr

LOSS AND GAIN 

A thoughtful poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

“Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother's face, her aspect and her attitude.”

Thanks to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Tribute to Robert Frost for such a beautiful ever green poem. To me, the poem beautifully depicts the conflict, atleast before making the choice, in the mind on what choice it needs to make  - bask in the beauty or work on the promises to keep.Thanks to accd.edu for the image of Robert Frost and about.quotations.com for the online version of the poem.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

“The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”   - Vince Lombardi

Thanks to Vince Lombardi for the quote, www.howstuffworks.com for the image and to www.thinkexist.com for the online version of the quote.

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