A little poetry for the soul. For no other reason than just because I needed a little poetry break on a very "challenging" day of back to backs with only 20 min. scheduled in for lunch. This poem came to mind when I overheard one co-worker say to another "What about God?" during a conversation as they walked passed.

What about God?

From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design,
Strike-slip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline...
We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,
And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.
Odd, long-vanished creatures and their tracks & shells are found;
Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the ground. [1]
The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it talks.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.

There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night,
Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.
Long ago, when torture broke the remnant of his will,
Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still [2]
High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,
The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the stars.
We may watch and study or may shudder and deny,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the sky.

By stem and root and branch we trace, by feather, fang and fur,
How the living things that are descend from things that were.
The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and flies,
These tiny, humble, wordless things -- how shall they tell us lies?
We are kin to beasts; no other answer can we bring.
The truth has left its fingerprints on every living thing.
Remember, should you have to choose between them in the strife,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote life.

And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade [3]
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.

-- Catherine Faber

Posted by: Michele at 01:17 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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SONNET LXVI

I DON”T LOVE YOU... Because I Love you
and from loving you to not loving I arrive
at waiting while not waiting,
all the while, my heart going from ice to fire.

I love only you because it is you I love.
I hate you endlessly and hating plead
to the measure of your temporary love
never to see you or love you blindly.

Perhaps your cruel streak
will consume my heart and inner light
stealing with it my eternal peace.

In this story it is I who die
dying in my love and need of you
loving with passion blood and fire only you.
~ Pablo Neruda, 1959 - Translation my own

SONETO LXVI
NO TE QUIERO sino porque te quiero
y de quererte a no quererte llego
y de esperarte cuando no te espero
pasa mi corazón del frío al fuego.

Te quiero sólo porque a ti te quiero,
te odio sin fin, y odiándote te ruego,
y la medida de mi amor viajero
es no verte y amarte como un ciego.

Tal vez consumirá la luz de enero,
su rayo cruel, mi corazón entero,
robándome la llave del sosiego.

En esta historia sólo yo me muero
y moriré de amor porque te quiero,
porque te quiero, amor, a sangre y fuego.
~ Pablo Neruda, 1959

Posted by: Michele at 12:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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