Calculations
Space you measure in feet and inches
and shoes by where your big toe pinches;
seasons by cherry, rose and snow,
when may comes and swallows go:
empires by rise and fall of kings;
weather by rain and drought and flood;
dead trees by whether the dragon sings
flowers by when they seed and bud.
But how do you measure silence?
Or the space between two thoughts?
Or the point where forces balance?
Or the product of two noughts?
Or where the shadows fade to
when the sun sinks in the west?
Or how your deeds are weighed you
as your life drifts into rest?
Houses go from stone to dust.
The builder is himself undone.
The gate is broken and gone to rust.
Nothing survives from sun to sun.
What was there before the beginning
lingers when stars now born are dead;
in the absence of suns is ever shining;
when nothing is thought and nothing said.
poem by Brian Taylor
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Related quotes
Time XXI
And an astronomer said, "Master, what of Time?"
And he answered:
You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not form love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?
But if in you thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.
poem by Khalil Gibran
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Time
Why do you measure time when time is measureless?
Why do you adjust your conduct and direct,
The course of your spirit according to hours and seasons?
You’ve made time a stream upon whose bank you sit and watch flowing.
The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and
Tomorrow is but today’s dream.
That which sings and contemplates in you still,
Dwells within the bounds of the first moment which
Scattered the stars into space.
If you must measure time into seasons, let each
Season encircle all the other seasons.
Indeed, let today embrace the past with remembrance,
And the future with sweet longing.
poem by Ray Lucero
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Longİ Ng Through The Seasons
ARE WE CHANGİ NG...or the seasons...the last leaves of the trees...tend no to fall from the trees...the last flowers of fall tend not to bloom again.....are we changing or the seasons...are we changing or the seasons...happy tiny fingers caress the whiteness of the falling snow near the window pane...at the other side...bare feet are shivering in the snow...as though match seller girl of andersen has revived again..some people are begging in the wilderness for piece of bread..are we cahanging or the seasons..an old woman her hair bleached by snow opening her hand..for a stand...are we chaNGİ NG OR THE SEASONS....the last flowers of the seasons of the seasons tend not to bloom again...I envy the struggle between the seasons for being and overwhelming....and when every season changes...I long for a new fresh life and world towards goodnes...beauty...peace and brother hood.............
poem by Metin Sahin
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At What Point....
the seasons of births and deaths go on....
waves come in to the shore,
yet then go out!
leaves fall from the tree,
while new buds wait...
stars explode into dust,
then new stars are born.
infinity changes shoes again and again,
yet the same feet walk the endless path.
are not bodies then just cups,
into which light is poured again and again?
and souls are just chapters
of an unending book....
what do we really know?
at what point do we shout hallelujah?
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Above All
Above all kingdoms
Above all thrones
Above all wonders
The world has ever known
Above all wealth
And treasures of the earth
There's no way to measure
What You're worth.
Above all powers
Above all kings
Above all nature
And all created things
Above all wisdom
And all the ways of man
You were here
Before the world began.
Crucified
Laid behind the stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all.
Crucified
Laid behind the stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all.
Crucified
Laid behind the stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all.
Like the rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all.
song performed by by Randy Travis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Autumn
So still—so still! Only the endless sighing
Of sad Æolian harp-notes overhead;
Only the soft mass-music for the dying;
Only the requiem for the newly dead!
So strangely dim!—the grey mist on the heather,
The chill cloud-twilight in the wind-stripped bowers,
Where gold and scarlet sunlights lay together
On harvest fruit and summer wealth of flowers.
So empty now!—only the dead leaves sifting
The dead brown berries underneath the trees;
Only my fair dead treasures idly drifting
About my footsteps in the autumn breeze.
All over now! No flowers that must be tended
Are left to grow upon the open plain;
No fruits to ripen; for the harvest's ended—
There's no more need for either sun or rain.
The infinite hope, the boundless, strong endeavour,
The love and joy I never thought to sum,
The precious things that were to last for ever—
All gather'd now, and nothing more to come!
Only the shroud of snow, the white star-tapers,
The passionate storm-winds, wailing in the air;
Only the icy rain and tearful vapours,
Only the winter darkness of despair!
* * * * *
So still, so sweet! with tender breezes blowing
Amongst the hills and o'er the Lowland sod,
And golden drifts of dead leaves softly strowing
The seed-graves hollow'd by the hands of God.
So grey and calm! the crimson glory faded
From this low sky, pale blue and purple-barred—
This placid sea, with steel and silver shaded—
This fair earth, now with autumn furrows scarred.
In the decay such chasten'd beauty blending—
Beauty late-born of peace, and hope, and rest,
As in a saintly life when near the ending,
When all its strife and labour has been blest.
The harvest-time is past. But there remaineth
The well-stored treasure-house—the hidden seed
That dead leaves help to nourish, which containeth
The germ of a new life that's life indeed.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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After Long Drought
After long drought, commotion in the sky;
After dead silence, thunder. Then it comes,
The rain. It slashes leaves, and doubly drums
On tin and shingle; beats and bends awry
The flower heads; puddles dust, and with a sigh
Like love sinks into grasses, where it hums
As bees did once, among chrysanthemums
And asters when the summer thought to die.
The whole world dreamed of this, and has it now.
Nor was the waking easy. The dull root
Is jealous of its death; the sleepy brow
Smiles in its slumber; and a heart can fear
The very flood it longed for, roaring near.
The spirit best remembers being mute.
poem by Mark Van Doren
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How Do You Measure Up?
If you measure yourself by ambition,
There will always be someone more ambitious than you.
If you measure yourself by money,
There is always someone wealthier than you.
If you measure yourself by power,
There is always someone more powerful than you.
If you measure yourself with material things,
There is always someone with more stuff than you.
If you measure yourself by where you are in life,
There is always someone farther down the path than you.
If you measure yourself by appearance,
There is always someone that appears than you.
If you measure yourself by God,
Then we are all the same.
We are all wonderfully and beautifully made.
God is love.
And love has no end.
So in God's heart,
You will always measure up!
poem by Ryan Lee Morris
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About A Stone Without A Door
you are telling me about a stone
who refuses to admit anyone simply
because it has no door, no room and no space
for someone like you,
you who does not even know what knowing someone
really means. you ask the stone for a space and it says no
and you tell the stone that it has a space
where the leaf and a dropp of water live
the stone says no, and you insist because of the state you are in
you are dying and you need a place
perhaps a burial space where you may finally lay yourself
to rest, but the stone still says no, telling you that it has
no feelings that for centuries it has always been its nature
stony, stony silence, stony stares, unfeeling, that in its
house of stone, there exists no word for sympathy
that it is simply living up to the demands of its true nature
its tradition, and you finally understand, yet somehow you
tell the stone about what it does not know
inside it there is this leaf with dew, there is dropp of water
coming from the rain, that until now it has not fully known,
that inside its stony silence, there is still this song
that it has a heart that it keeps denying.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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339
you are telling me about a stone
who refuses to admit anyone simply
because it has no door, no room and no space
for someone like you,
you who does not even know what knowing someone
really means. you ask the stone for a space and it says no
and you tell the stone that it has a space
where the leaf and a dropp of water live
the stone says no, and you insist because of the state you are in
you are dying and you need a place
perhaps a burial space where you may finally lay yourself
to rest, but the stone still says no, telling you that it has
no feelings that for centuries it has always been its nature
stony, stony silence, stony stares, unfeeling, that in its
house of stone, there exists no word for sympathy
that it is simply living up to the demands of its true nature
its tradition, and you finally understand, yet somehow you
tell the stone about what it does not know
inside it there is this leaf with dew, there is dropp of water
coming from the rain, that until now it has not fully known,
that inside its stony silence, there is still this song
that it has a heart that it keeps denying.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Late Lark Twitters From The Quiet Skies
the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, gray city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.
The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine and are changed. In the valley
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night-
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.
So be my passing!
My task accomplish'd and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gather'd to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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To Love Without Measure
when i say i love you
there is no meter to it
no scales
from one to ten
no scores till the hundred
there is no depth
nothing about height
there is nothing to measure
nothing to price
for love is as light as air
and fills every empty space
for love cannot be weighed
and beyond what is heavy
or burdensome
its depth is beyond comprehension
its value is priceless
its measure
immeasurable.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Waiting for Love
Silence as a definite quantum of infinity
Found in the cold wet icicles of virginity
A heavy burden are the layers of snow
Hiding the longing for heat from below
The surface of waters covered by ice
It's the calling of nature that surely entice
As the sun is all beginning of life and death
Waiting in silence is like catching your last breath
Unspoken thoughts while dancing in the rain
With driving forces of storms claiming new domain
Unsought battles fought with sweat and blood
Remain hidden by shadows like a sleeping bud
Passions undiscovered by exposed deserts ablaze
Arid regions waiting slumbering for rainy days
Silence surrounds vague hopes of nondescript affairs
While wild abundant streams touch our unawares
Fever spreading in slow motion through time and space
Awaiting the beginning of sound and a world to embrace
© 2011
poem by Kristina Louisa Carr
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Melville and Coghill - The Place Of The Little Hand
DEAD, with their eyes to the foe,
Dead, with the foe at their feet;
Under the sky laid low
Truly their slumber is sweet,
Though the wind from the Camp of the
Slain Men blow,
And the rain on the wilderness beat.
Dead, for they chose to die
When that wild race was run;
Dead, for they would not fly,
Deeming their work undone,
Nor cared to look on the face of the sky,
Nor loved the light of the sun.
Honor we give them and tears,
And the flag they died to save,
Rent from the raid of the spears,
Wet from the war and the wave,
Shall waft men’s thoughts through the dust of the years,
Back to their lonely grave!
poem by Andrew Lang
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Obliterations Of Beauty And We Weep
Obliterations of beauty and we weep
for what cannot long abide in us
because we, not the rose, are the ones
who are passing so irrevocably away
into an abyss that doesn't
take the measure of anything.
The lake knows the time
by the wingspan of its waterbirds.
I note the location of the stars
in the rotation of the Big Dipper.
And there are crickets
that will yield the time as well.
Time, too, like human solitude
is embodied in the things of this world.
Time perishes when we do,
is born with us, matures,
and embraces our ends as its own nature.
Time sets its pace to the passage of us.
We are the muse, the motivator, the demi-urge
of its passion for shedding
the leaves and flowers and moon like skin.
And we're the ones who grow infinite
at the speed of light so that everything stops
immeasurably from there on everafter.
All things returning to the one, and the one,
returning to transcendence. Which is why
I come here this late at night when the stars
are as far from people as they can be
and yet they're still as intimate to me
as my eyes are. A mutually creative continuum.
The star makes the eye I need to see it by.
I am the fragrance of the wildflowers
and the adamantine insights of the rocks.
The singing master of the nightbirds.
The oracle in the leprous skull of the raccoon.
And my heart is one long, continuous moonrise
when I think of how the dead still animate me.
How they cling to my heart like ants to a peony
to let me know when it's time to bloom.
The dead trees house the mosquitoes and the herons.
The fallen pine cones, the seed koans of Zen masters
under their brittle eyelids waiting for the fire
to crack them deciduously open into evergreens.
I don't lament the passivity of the dead in my life
because I put them to good use in their capacity
as enlightened mentors who urge me
to live splendidly whatever I encounter in the world
for all our sakes. I can be the blossom and the fruit
on the dead branch, as easily as a red-winged blackbird
sings from the green and leafless alike.
Not a bush wolf raises its voice up to the moon
that I don't feel its distant longing in my own throat
like a sacred syllable half way to blossoming among the dead
who always hear it like an auspicious beginning
to the summons of their leave-taking in the fall,
to the deeper greeting in the meaning of farewell.
poem by Patrick White
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Dead And Broken
Too many things I've never spoken
I'm not feeling fine
I never told you what to do
I never made you a promise that you could hold me to
That'll be the day you see me crying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
How many different faces can you show me?
How many times can you be right?
Another world of fantasy
Another reason for dramatizing everything
Taking it all in just one more time
I'm dying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
Sorry to see that you're underestimated lately
I'd rather be dead and broken than living in your grace
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
song performed by by Godsmack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Camp Within the West
O DID you see a troop go by
Way-weary and oppressed,
Dead kisses on the drooping lip
And a dead heart in the breast?
Yea, I have seen them one by one
Way-weary and oppressed,
And when I asked them, ‘Whither speed?’
They answered, ‘To the West!’
And were they pale as pale could be—
Death-pale with haunted eyes,
And did you see the hot white dust
Range round their feet and rise?
Oh, they were pale as pale could be,
And pale as an embered leaf;
The hot white dust had risen, but
They laid it with their grief.
Did no one say the way is long,
And crave a little rest?
Oh no, they said, ‘The night is nigh,
Our camp is in the West!’
And did pain pierce their feet, as though
The way with thorns were set,
And were they visited by strange
Dark angels of regret?
Oh yea, and some were mute as death,
Though shot by many a dart,
With them the salt of inward tears
Went stinging through the heart.
And how are these wayfarers called,
And whither do they wend?
The Weary-Hearted—and their road
At sunset hath and end.
Shed tears for them…Nay, nay, no tears!
They yearn for endless rest;
Perhaps large stars will burn above
Their camp within the West.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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Above All
Verse 1
Above all powers above all kings
Above all kingdoms
Above all nature and all created things
Above all thrones
Above all wisdom and all the ways of man
Above all wonders
You were here before the world began
The world has ever known
Above all wealth
Above all kingdoms above all thrones
And treasures of the earth
Above all wonders the world has ever known
There's no way to measure
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
What You're worth
There's no way to measure what You're worth
Verse 2
Crucified laid behind the stone
Above all powers
You lived to die rejected and alone
Above all kings
Like a Rose trampled on the ground
Above all nature
You took the fall and thought of me
And all created things
Above all
Above all wisdom
And all the ways of man
Above all powers above all kings
You were here
Above all nature and all created things
Before the world began
Above all wisdom and all the ways of man
You were here before the world began
CHORUS
Crucified
Above all kingdoms above all thrones
Laid behind the stone
Above all wonders the world has ever known
You lived to die
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
Rejected and alone
There's no way to measure what You're worth
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
Crucified laid behind the stone
You took the fall
You lived to die rejected and alone
And thought of me
Like a Rose trampled on the ground
Above all
You took the fall and thought of me
Above all
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
Crucified laid behind the stone
You lived to die rejected and alone
Like the rose
Like a Rose trampled on the ground
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall and thought of me
You took the fall
Above all
And thought of me
Above all
Like a Rose trampled on the ground
You took the fall and thought of me
Above all
song performed by by Michael W. Smith
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Margaritae Sorori
A LATE lark twitters from the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, gray city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.
The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine and are changed. In the valley
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night--
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.
So be my passing!
My task accomplish'd and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gather'd to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.
poem by William Ernest Henley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Appreciative Audience.
Soft moonlight filters through the trees
Which seem to dance to melodies
Created by the gentle breeze.
The shadows on the ground dance too
Or to my eyes they appear to
Disintegrate then form anew.
Sometimes the clouds blot out the light
The shadows gain a brief respite.
Rejoin the darkness of the night.
But clouds move on and when they do
And once again moonlight shows through.
The trees will dance, the shadows too.
The sun will rise to start the day.
The dancing shadows hide away
But where they hide no man can say.
The sun completes his daily quest.
Journeying from east to west.
Then sinks below the sea to rest.
The moon will rise she rules the night
Then once again to my delight
She bathes the trees in silver light.
The melodies played by the breeze
Will re awake the sleeping trees.
To dance again with practiced ease.
Beneath the trees reluctantly
the shadows still dance gracefully.
I watch in silence gratefully.
I know they do not dance for me
And I am privileged to see
The shadows dance under the trees.
Friday,23 September 2011
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poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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