Words That Flow, Poses That Ground
16 Poems to Still or Stir the Spirit.
You’ve moved through sun salutations, taken a downdog or two, groaned through a long-held plank pose, and now, a much-deserved śavāsana is on the tip of the teacher’s tongue. As you finally lie down to relax, the teacher shares a poem. You breathe and listen as you soften into the words. In that moment, you are held. There’s a perfect moment of absorption.
Admittedly, this is one of my favorite ways to end class. It can anchor people’s attention, quiet the distraction of ambling thoughts, and weave a life lesson into the practice as it resolves.
Much like yoga, poetry highlights connection. There’s an opportunity to reconcile our humanness. It’s a container for comfort and kinship. We touch a commonality in themes of love, loss, aversion, and attachment. All with the great courage of present-moment awareness.
Here’s a little bonus breathing break. My first, um - er podcast? Guided relaxation with the poem waiting. A poem about self-acceptance as we age and ride the tides of life.
Waiting - Leza Lowitz
“You keep waiting for something to happen,
the thing that lifts you out of yourself,
catapults you into doing all the things you’ve put off
the great things you’re meant to do in your life,
but somehow never quite get to.
You keep waiting for the planets to shift
the new moon to bring news,
the universe to align, something to give.
Meanwhile, the piles of papers, the laundry, the dishes, the job—
it all stacks up while you keep hoping
for some miracle to blast down upon you,
scattering the piles to the winds.
Sometimes you lie in bed, terrified of your life.
Sometimes you laugh at the privilege of waking.
But all the while, life goes on it its messy way.
And then you turn forty. Or fifty. Or sixty…
and some part of you realizes you are not alone
and you find signs of this in the animal kingdom –
when a snake sheds its skin its eyes glaze over,
it slinks under a rock, not wanting to be touched,
and when caterpillar turns to butterfly
if the pupa is brushed, it will die—
and when the bird taps its beak hungrily against the egg
It’s because the thing is too small, too small,
and it needs to break out.
And midlife walks you into that wisdom
that this is what transformation looks like—
the mess of it, the tapping at the walls of your life,
the yearning and writhing and pushing,
until one day, one day
you emerge from the wreck
embracing both the immense dawn
and the dusk of the body,
glistening, beautiful
just as you are.”
Poetry is the art of observance, whose writers witness a precise truth—the conveyer of experience, emotion, and thought. In the words, we can feel a lift in the heart or a clench in the gut. Sometimes we are stirred, sometimes settled. A language of healing comes through in emotions.
In times of distress, it’s easy to distance ourselves from the immediate pang of a moment. We sacrifice an option for healing for the will to keep going. We think, “Maybe we can save this moment of reckoning for another time? Maybe, if we keep moving—it will dissolve on its own?” While it doesn’t help to get stuck in any story, it’s important to process what we’re feeling. Poetry, like yoga, begins to unravel tightly tangled emotions to get to the core and tarry at the center.
It was a challenge to keep this collection on the shorter side. I slimmed it down to sixteen favorites. Still a lot for one sitting—bookmark this page and come back tomorrow! I encourage you to take your time. Read slowly with the lull of your breath. Use them as a prompt for your own writing and discovery. Let your time with each one be a meditation.
The Guest - House Rumi
“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”
Your grief Rumi
“Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you are bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes, and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced
and coordinated
as birds' wings.”
Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing - Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and 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.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn't make any sense.
Even after all this time - Hafiz
“Even after all this time
The Sun never says to the Earth
"You owe me"
Look what happens with a love like that
It lights up the whole sky”
Eternity - William Blake
“He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise”
The Exquisite Risk - Mark Nepo
My soul tells me, we were
all broken from the same nameless
heart, and every living thing
wakes with a piece of that original
heart aching its way into blossom.
This is why we know each other
below our strangeness, why when we fall, we lift each other, or when
in pain, we hold each other, why
when sudden with joy, we dance
together. Life is the many pieces
of that great heart loving itself
back together.
Old Souls - Nikita Gill
“There is a beautiful thing inside you
That is thousands of years old.
Too old to be captured in poems.
Too old to be loved by everyone
But loved so very deeply
By a chosen few.”
Enough - David Whyte
“Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
We have refused again and again
Until now.
Until now.”
The Healing Time - Persha Gertler
“Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say
holy holy”
For Courage - John O’Donohue
“When the light around you lessens
And your thoughts darken until
Your body feels fear turn
Cold as a stone inside . . .
Know that you are not alone
And that this darkness has purpose;
Gradually it will school your eyes
To find the one gift your life requires
Hidden within this night-corner.
Close your eyes,
Gather all the kindling
About your heart
To create one spark.
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark
Of its weight of festered fear.
A new confidence will come alive
To urge you toward higher ground
Where your imagination
Will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!”
Prayer - Lisa Colt
“May we reveal our abundance without shame.
may we peel back our sleeping wintry layers…
like snakeskins, like the silk chrysalis,
like clothing cast off during love.
May we unravel with abandon like lover’s knots
before knitting ourselves back to the heart.
May we settle into our own rhythms as tides do—
within the borders of the moon’s calling.
May the music of our souls
be accompanied by grand gestures
and the persistent clapping of hummingbirds wings.
May the milky fingers of the moon
reach down nightly to cherish and unveil us.
May we turn our bodies generously in its light
like tranquil fish glinting underwater,
like precious stones.
When we open our mouths to sing
may the seasons pause in their long journey
to listen and applaud.”
Wild Geese - Mary Oliver
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
Messenger - Mary Oliver
“My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.”
The Dream Keeper - Langston Hughes
“Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers.
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too rough fingers
Of the world.”
Desiderata - Max Ehrmann
“Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.”
