The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

The Panther

His tired gaze -from passing endless bars-
has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds.
To him there seem to be a thousand bars,
and out beyond these bars exists no world.

His supple gait, the smoothness of strong strides
that gently turn in ever smaller circles
perform a dance of strength, centered deep within
a will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable.

But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part,
the pupils of his eyes dilate as images
of past encounters enter while through his limbs
a tension strains in silence
only to cease to be, to die within his heart.

I do not love you

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

Auguries of Innocence
by William Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage

Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons

Shudders hell through all its regions.

A dog starved at his master's gate

Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road

Calls to heaven for human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted hare

A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,

A cherubim does cease to sing.

The game-cock clipped and armed for fight

Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl

Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer wandering here and there

Keeps the human soul from care.

The lamb misused breeds public strife,

And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve

Has left the brain that won't believe.

The owl that calls upon the night

Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren

Shall never be beloved by men.

He who the ox to wrath has moved

Shall never be by woman loved.

The wanton boy that kills the fly

Shall feel the spider's enmity.

He who torments the chafer's sprite

Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf

Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.

Kill not the moth nor butterfly,

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war

Shall never pass the polar bar.

The beggar's dog and widow's cat,

Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song

Poison gets from Slander's tongue.

The poison of the snake and newt

Is the sweat of Envy's foot.

The poison of the honey-bee

Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags

Are toadstools on the miser's bags.

A truth that's told with bad intent

Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so:

Man was made for joy and woe;

And when this we rightly know

Through the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine.

Under every grief and pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands,

Throughout all these human lands;

Tools were made and born were hands,

Every farmer understands.

Every tear from every eye

Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright

And returned to its own delight.

The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar

Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath

Writes Revenge! in realms of death.

The beggar's rags fluttering in air

Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier armed with sword and gun

Palsied strikes the summer's sun.

The poor man's farthing is worth more

Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the labourer's hands

Shall buy and sell the miser's lands,

Or if protected from on high

Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith

Shall be mocked in age and death.

He who shall teach the child to doubt

The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith

Triumphs over hell and death.

The child's toys and the old man's reasons

Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner who sits so sly

Shall never know how to reply.

He who replies to words of doubt

Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known

Came from Caesar's laurel crown.

Nought can deform the human race

Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plough

To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.

A riddle or the cricket's cry

Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile

Make lame philosophy to smile.

He who doubts from what he sees

Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,

They'd immediately go out.

To be in a passion you good may do,

But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state

Licensed, build that nation's fate.

The harlot's cry from street to street

Shall weave old England's winding sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,

Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn

Some to misery are born.

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,

Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie

When we see not through the eye

Which was born in a night to perish in a night,

When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light

To those poor souls who dwell in night,

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day.

I'm finding my way back to sanity again
though I don't really know what I'm gonna do when I get there
and take a breath and hold on tight
spin around one more time
and gracefully fall back to the arms of grace

cause I am hanging on every word you say and
even if you don't want to speak tonight
that's alright, alright with me
cause I want nothing more than
to sit outside Heaven's door
and listen to you breathing
is where I wanna be yeah

I'm looking past the shadows in my mind into the truth and I'm
trying to identify the voices in my head
God which one's you
let me feel one more time what it
feels like to feel and
break these call
uses off of me
one more time

cause I am hanging on every word you say and
even if you don't wanna speak tonight
that's alright, alright with me
cause I want nothing more than
to sit outside your doorand listen to your breathing
is where I wanna be yeah
where I wanna be

I don't want a thing from you
bet you're tired of me
waiting for the scraps to fall off of your table to the ground
cause I just want to be here now

cause I am hanging on every word you say and
even if you don't wanna speak tonight
that's alright, alright with me
cause I want nothing more than
to sit outside Heaven's door
and listen to your breathing
is where I wanna be yeah

cause I am hanging on every word you say and
even if you don't wanna speak tonight
that's alright, alright with me
cause I want nothing more than
to sit outside Heaven's door
and listen to you breathing
is where I wanna be yeah
where I wanna be
where I wanna be

- Lifehouse, Breathing