The Perennials

Verse about Life!

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don't enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you're not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.

~Andy Rooney

Siege

This I do, being mad:
Gather baubles about me,
Sit in a circle of toys, and all the time
Death beating the door in.

White jade and an orange pitcher,
Hindu idol, Chinese god, ~
Maybe next year, when I'm richer ~
Carved beads and a lotus pod.....

And all this time
Death beating the door in.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

MOTHER TO SON

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor ~
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you find it's kinder hard,
Don't you fall now ~
For I'se still goin' honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

~Langston Hughes

Shortly after I saw Shoah, a documentary film about the Nazi death camps, I got into the elevator in my building with a man who lives a few floors below. We've had an elevator acquaintance for years ~ friendly, but limited to brief risings and fallings. In his slight European accent he asked me how I was. "Not too good," I said, "How about you?" He looked at me sympathetically. "I decided long ago," he said, "that only I had the power to make myself happy. You have to do this. Otherwise life is too much." The elevator stopped and the door opened. "After a war, after a concentration camp," he said as he stepped off, "I find it's not too difficult to be happy." Alone with my surprise as the door closed, I realized that in some other town, on some really bad day half a long lifetime ago, they must have come and taken my neighbor away.

~Loudon Wainwright
in "Life"

My dress is old,
but at night the moon is kind.
Then I wear
a beautiful moon-colored dress.

~unknown (Native American)

MY HEART, BEING HUNGRY

My heart, being hungry, feeds on food
The fat of heart despise.
Beauty where beauty never stood,
And sweet where no sweet lies
I gather to my querulous need,
Having a growing heart to feed.

It may be when my heart is full,
Having attained its girth,
I shall not find so beautiful
The meagre shapes of earth,
Nor linger in the rain to mark
The smell of tansy in the dark.

~Edna St Vincent Millay

I opened the drawer of my little desk and a single letter fell out, a letter from my mother, written in pencil, one of her last, with unfinished words and an implicit sense of her departure. It's so curious: one can resist tears and "behave" very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window...or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed...or a letter slips from a drawer...and everything collapses.

~Colette
"Letters from Colette"

TEARS

Tears on the outside
Fall to the ground
And are slowly swept away...

Tears on the inside
Fall on the soul
And stay, and stay, and stay.

~Donald Wayne Rash

I wish I could, but I...
That would be nice if only I didn't have to...
Can we do it some other time, maybe next...
Just a minute, let me...
Hold on, I'll be right...
A little later, when...
How about...
Instead of...
Perhaps the...
Time is...
Now.

~Inez M. Robinson

I do not wish you joy without a sorrow ~
Nor endless day without the healing dark ~
Nor brilliant sun without the restful shadow ~
Nor tides that turn against your bark.
I wish you love,
and strength,
and faith,
and wisdom,
goods,
gold enough to help some needy one.
I wish you songs, but also blessed silence...
And God's sweet peace when every day is done.

~Dorothy Nell McDonald

"Desiderata"