If It Is Not Too Dark

Creativity Poetry & Quotes
#1

[I]Go for a walk, if it is not too dark.
Get some fresh air, try to smile.
Say somethng kind
To a safe-looking stranger, if one happens by.

Always exercise your heart’s knowing.

You might as well attempt something real
Along this path:

Take your spouse or lover into your arms
The way you did when you first met.[/I]
[I]Let tenderness pour from your eyes
The way the Sun gazes warmly on the earth.

Play a game with some children.
Extend yourself to a friend.
Sing a few ribald songs to your pets and plants -
Why not let them get drunk and wild![/I]

[I]Let’s toast
Every rung we’ve climbed on Evolution’s ladder.
Whisper, ? love you! I love you!
To the whole mad world.
[/I]
[I]Let’s stop reading about God-
We will never understand Him.

Jump to your feet, wave your fists,
Threaten and warn the whole Universe

That your heart can no longer live
Without real love![/I]

[B]Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky, from I heard God laughing[/B]

#2

What advice! Reminds me of Walt Whitman.

#3

Can you share something of Walt Whitman? I was not a big fan of poetry and than this book came into my hands and I couldn’t stop reading. It is such a nice summer contemplation, really thought lightening :slight_smile:

[I]Forever Dance[/I]

I[I] am happy even before I have a reason.

I am full of Light even before the sky
Can greet the sun or the moon.[/I]

[I]Dear companions,
We have been in love with God
For so very, very long.[/I]

[I]What can Hafiz now do but Forever
Dance![/I]

#4

I’ve been looking for the full text for “I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world”, but so far the web has yielded just reminiscences over the movie Dead Poet Society. It might be in my Norton’s Anthology. . . have you used the link for the Mary Oliver poem I put up?

#5

Yes really nice poem is that of Mary Oliver. I googled and found many poems of Walt Whitman, but I had the same results as you with “I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world”. Anyway this was enough of a poetry at once for me:-) and I wil be happy to read the poem you said if I ever see it. I was just curious why it reminds you of Hafiz.

#6

Whitman and the first poem you presented both have a way of talking about big ideas and little instances of daily life as if they are the same thing – which, of course, they are. But the reminder can be surprising and precious and very, very necessary. ‘let tenderness pour from your eyes’ is both instruction on technique and encouragement that we cultivate an attitude toward all of life.
Also, they have in common a length of phrasing – these aren’t sonnets, and they aren’t sonnets in a peculiarly similar way.
The second poem you present is not a representative of what I saw in the first. But it is a beautiful invitation to joy within the greater context of the universe. Thank you for sharing both of them.

from “Song of the Open Road”, in the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go.
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them; and I will fill them in return.)

#7

Thank you too for sharing and being so thoughtful to explain more.