FAITH HOUSE Manhattan

A Sabbath Poem (Nordeman)

River God
~ Nicole Nordeman

Rolling River God
Little Stones are smooth
Only once the water passes through
So I am a stone
Rough and grainy still
Trying to reconcile this river's chill

But when I close my eyes
And feel you rushing by
I know that time brings change
And change takes time
And when the sunset comes
My prayer would be just this one
That you might pick me up
And notice that I am
Just a little smoother in your hand

Sometimes raging wild
Sometimes swollen high
Never have I known this river dry
The deepest part of you
Is where I want to stay
And feel the sharpest edges wash away

This poem was used in our Summer Women's Spirituality Circle. Email Jill Minkoff if you are interested in attending future Women's Spirituality Circles. 

A Sabbath Poem (L'Amoreaux)

A Prayer to Protect Water
- By Claudia L'Amoreaux

We call you ocean.

We call you sea, gulf, strait, bight,
bay, lagoon, river, falls, creek,
stream, lake, pond, spring.

We call you rain.

We call you pool, puddle, snowflake,
glacier, dew, mist, cove, channel, inlet,
cascade, brook, tributary, bayou, tarn,

H2O.

We travel your powerful currents
to meet our relations.
We flood our rice fields.
We bathe our children.
We cleanse the dead.
We baptise, we purify, we do ablutions,
We immerse in the mikvah.
We heal with you - Holy Water.

We remember to protect you.
We remember to protect you.
We remember to protect you.
We remember to protect you.

 
This poem was used in our Summer Women's Spirituality Circle.  Photo above of our water-themed altar.  Email Jill Minkoff if you are interested in attending future Women's Spirituality Circles.  

A Sabbath Poem (Mcllhagga)

The Shadow of the Dove
~ Kate Mcllhagga

When dawn’s ribbon of glory around the world returns
and the earth emerges from sleep –

The shadow of the dove is seen
as she flies across moor and city.
Over the warm breast of the earth she skims,
her shadow falling on
the watcher in the tower,
the refugee in the ditch,
the weary soldier at the gate.

The shadow of peace
falls across the all-night sitting of a council,
across the tense negotiators
around a table.
The shadow of hope
is cast across the bars of a hostage cell
filling with momentary light
rooms tense with conflict,
bringing a brief respite,
a sliver of gold across the dark.

She flies untiring
across flooded fields,
across a city divided by hate and fear,
across a town wreathed in smoke.
The shadow of reconciliation,
the dove of peace
with healing in her wings,
is felt and seen and turned towards
as she makes righteousness shine
like the dawn,
the justice of her cause
like the noonday sun.

Holy Spirit of love,
bring healing, bring peace.

from Fifty Great Prayers from the Iona Community

This poem was used in our Summer Women's Spirituality Circle.  Photo above of our water-themed altar.  Email Jill Minkoff if you are interested in attending future Women's Spirituality Circles. 

A Sabbath Poem (Eckhart)

God in All Things
-By Meister Eckhart

Apprehend God in all things,
for God is in all things.

Every single creature is full of God
and is a book about God.

Every creature is a word of God.

If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature–
even a caterpillar–
I would never have to prepare a sermon.  So full of God
is every creature.

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Cummings)

-By E.E.Cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Hopkins)

Pied Beauty
-By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things—
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                  Praise him.

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers.

A Sabbath Poem (Hughes)

The Negro Speaks of Rivers
-By Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Bozarth)

The Small Plot of Ground
— Alla Renee Bozarth

The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected

to stay forever
the same.
Earth changes,
and home becomes different
places.

You took flesh
from clay
but the clay
did not come
from just one
place.

To feel alive,
important, and safe,
know your own waters
and hills, but know
more.

You have stars in your bones
and oceans
in blood.

You have opposing
terrain in each eye
you belong to the land
and sky of your first cry,
you belong to infinity.

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Weaver)

— Helen Weaver 

Almighty God, who are mother and father to us all,
Look upon your planet Earth divided:
Help us to know that we are all your children;
That all nations belong to one great family,
And that all of our religions lead to you.

Multiply our prayers in every land
Until the whole Earth becomes your congregation,
United in your love.
Sustain our vision of a peaceful future
And give us strength to work unceasingly
To make that vision real. Amen

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Hooey)

— M.J. Slim Hooey

I have come to terms with the future.
From this day onward I will walk
easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill
no living things. Live in harmony with
all creatures. i will restore the earth
where I am. Use no more of its resources
than I need. And listen, listen to what
it is telling me.

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Nachman)

Prayer for Nature
— Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav 

Grant me the ability to be alone,
may it be my custom to go outdoors each day
among the trees and grass,
among all growing things
and there may I be alone,
and enter into prayer,
to talk with the One
to whom I belong.

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (UN)

A Call to Prayer
— U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program  

We who have lost our sense and our senses – our touch, our smell, our vision of who we are; we who frantically force and press all things, without rest for body or spirit, hurting our earth and injuring ourselves: we call a halt.
     We want to rest. We need to rest and allow the earth to rest. We need to reflect and to rediscover the mystery that lives in us, that is the ground of every unique expression of life, the source of the fascination that calls all things to communion.
     We declare a Sabbath, a space of quiet: for simple being and letting be; for recovering the great, forgotten truths; for learning how to live again.

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Berry)

We Who Prayed and Wept
— Wendell Berry 

We who prayed and wept
for liberty from kings
and yoke of liberty
accept the tyanny of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.

Those who will not learn
in plenty to keep their place
must learn it by their need
when they have had their way
and the fields spurn their seed.
We have failed Thy grace.
Lord, I flinch and pray,
send Thy necessity.

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Griffin)

Matter (How We Know)
— Susan Griffin 

We know ourselves to be made from this earth. We know this earth is made from our bodies. For we see ourselves. And we are nature. We are nature seeing nature. We are nature with a concept of nature. Nature weeping. Nature speaking of nature to nature.
      The red-winged blackbird flies in us, in our inner sight. We see the arc of her flight. We measure the ellipse. We predict its climax. We are amazed. We are moved. We fly. We watch her wings negotiate the wind, the substance of the air, its elements and the elements of those elements, and count those elements found in other beings, the sea urchin's sting, ink, this paper, our bones, the flesh of our tongues with which we make the sound "blackbird," the ears with which we hear, the eye which travels the arc of her flight. And yet the blackbird does not fly in us but is somewhere else free of our minds, and now even free of our sight, flying in the path of her own will

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Hesse)

Sometimes
— Hermann Hesse 

Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.

My soul turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.

My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Whitman)

We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd 
— Walt Whitman 

We two, how long we were fool'd, 
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes, 
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return, 
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark, 
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks, 
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side, 
We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any, 
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together, 
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes
      mornings and evenings, 
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals, 
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down, 
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves
      orbic and stellar, we are as two comets, 
We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey, 
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead, 
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling 
      over each other and interwetting each other, 
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious,
      impervious, 
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and
      influence of the globe, 
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again,
      we two, 
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy. 

This poem is a part of a series that comes from the book "Earth Prayers," a collection of daily earth honoring poems and prayers

A Sabbath Poem (Gilbert)

A Brief for the Defense
— Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

 

This poem is a long-time favorite of staff member Faigy Abdelhak. Please email info@faithhousemanhattan.org  if you have a poem you'd like to see posted as a Sabbath poem on our site. It can be something you wrote, or just a piece you highly recommend. 

 

A Sabbath Poem (Tagore)

      TAKE, O TAKE
      ~ by Rabindranath Tagore

      Time after time I came to Your gate with raised hands,
      asking for more and yet more.

      You gave and gave, now in slow measure, now in sudden
      excess.

      I took some, and some things I let drop; some lay
      heavy on my hands; some I made into playthings and
      broke them when I tired, till the wrecks and the hoard
      of Your gifts grew immense, hiding You, and the
      ceaseless expectation wore my heart out.

      "Take, O take" has now become my cry.

      Hold my hands; raise me from the still-gathering heap
      of Your gifts into the bare infinity of Your uncrowded
      presence.

(from the The Heart of God, poems selected and editied by Herbert F. Vetter)

A Sabbath Poem (Neruda)

      from KEEPING STILL
      ~ by Pablo Neruda

      If we were not single-minded
      about keeping our lives moving,
      and for once could do nothing,
      perhaps a huge silence
      might interrupt this sadness
      of never understanding ourselves
      and of threatening ourselves with death.

(from Extravagaria, Pablo Neruda, transl. Alistair Reid, Noonday Press, 2001)

A Sabbath Poem (Whyte)

      SELF-PORTRAIT
      ~ by David Whyte

      It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
      or many gods.

      I want to know if you belong or feel
      abandoned.
      If you know the despair or can see it in others.
      I want to know
      if you are prepared to live in the world
      with its harsh need
      to change you. If you can look back
      with firm eyes
      saying this is where I stand. I want to know
      if you know
      how to melt into that fierce heat of living
      falling toward
      the center of your longing. I want to know
      if you are willing
      to live, day by day, with the consequences of love
      and the bitter
      unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

      I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
      the gods speak of God.

(from Fire in the Earth, by David Whyte, 1992)

A Sabbath Poem (St. Augustine)

      IN PRAISE OF DANCING
      ~ by St. Augustine

      I praise the dance, for it frees people
          from the heaviness of matter
          and binds the isolated to community.
      I praise the dance, which demands everything:
          health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.
      Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,
          who are in constant danger of becoming all brain,
          will, or feeling.
      Dancing demands a whole person, one who is
          firmly anchored in the center of his life, who is
          not obsessed by lust for people and things
          and the demon of isolation in his own ego.
      Dancing demands a freed person, one who vibrates
          with the balance of all his powers.
      I praise the dance.
      O man, learn to dance, or else the angels in heaven
          will not know what to do with you.

(source: Bruderhof, Daily Dig)

A Sabbath Poem (Updike)

      PERFECTION WASTED
      ~ by John Updike

      And another regrettable thing about death
      is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
      which took a whole life to develop and market--
      the quips, the witticisms, the slant
      adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
      the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
      in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
      their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
      their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
      their response and your performance twinned.
      The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
      in the rapid-access life. The whole act.
      Who will do it again? That's it: no one,
      imitators and descendants aren't the same.

(from Good Poems, selected by Garrison Keillor, Penguin, 2002)

A Sabbath Poem (Robbins)

      A MILESTONE
      ~ by Jessica Robbins, CA

      I find myself living opposites at the same time
            Healthier and stronger than I ever thought possible
            Spent and weaker than I ever expected

      “I have longed to tell my story and pour my tears to you
            Or just sit silently
            With pain too heavy to hold on my own.”

      I have done things I am ashamed of
            I fail my own ideals, I believe in lies
            Facing the prospect of stumbling like this for the rest of my days

      I don’t live with certainty anymore
            Hope is my theology, my religion
            That there is a God
            Who has compassion for me

            Who can see
            And looks

            At me,
            Feeling love, and not regret

(thank you Jess for sharing your poem with us)

A Sabbath Poem (Franciscan)

   MAY GOD BLESS YOU
   ~ A Franciscan Benediction

   May God bless you with discomfort
   At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
   So that you may live deep within your heart.

   May God bless you with anger
   At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
   So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

   May God bless you with tears
   To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
   So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
   To turn their pain into joy.

   And may God bless you with enough foolishness
   To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
   So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
   To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

A Sabbath Poem (Hafiz-2)

         DON'T SURRENDER YOUR LONELINESS SO QUICKLY
          ~ Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (c. 1320-1389)

         Don’t surrender your loneliness
         So quickly.
         Let it cut more deep.

         Let it ferment and season you
         As few human
         Or even divine ingredients can.

         Something missing in my heart tonight
         Has made my eyes so soft,
         My voice
         So tender,

         My need of God
         Absolutely
         Clear.

(from Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy
Lives, by Wayne Muller, Bantam Books, 1999, on this website)

A Sabbath Poem (Chaplin)

      DARE NOT SPEAK

      ~ by Ralph Chaplin (conscientious objector during WWI)

      Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie,

      Dust unto dust—

      The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die

      As all men must;

      Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell,

      Too strong to strive— 

      Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,

      Buried alive;

      But rather mourn the apathetic throng,

      The coward and the meek—

      Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong

      And dare not speak.

A Sabbath Poem (Kelley)

       

         CHOOSE LIFE         

          ~ by Sister Helen Kelley

          Choose Life

          only that and always,

          and at whatever risk.

          To let life leak out, to let it wear away by

          the mere passage of time, to withold

          giving it and spreading it

          is to choose

          nothing.

(from Turning to One Another, by Margaret J. Wheatley, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2002)

A Sabbath Poem (Hasidic)

      AN OLD HASIDIC POEM

    Take special care to guard your
       tongue before the morning prayer. 
    Even greeting your fellow, we are told, 
       can be harmful at that hour. 
    A person who wakes up in the morning is 
       like a new creation. 
    Begin you day with unkind words, 
       or even trivial matters-- 
       even though you may latter turn to prayer, 
       you have not been true to your Creation. 
    All of your words each day 
       are related to one another. 
    All of them are rooted 
       in the first words that you speak.

A Sabbath Poem (Kabir)

I JUST LAUGH ~ by Kabir (c. 1440-1518)

If I told you the truth about God, you might think I was an idiot.
If I lied to you about the Beautiful One you might parade me through the streets shouting,“This guy is a genius!”
This world has its pants on backwards. Most carry their values and knowledge in a jug that has a big hole in it.
Thus having a clear grasp of the situation if I am asked anything these days
I just laugh!

(from the Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices
from the East and West, translation Daniel Ladinsky
- Penguin Compass, 2002, on this website)

A Sabbath Poem (Whittemore)

   PSALM      

   ~ by Reed Whittemore

    The Lord feeds some of His prisoners better than others. 
    It could be said of Him that He is not a just god but an 
indifferent god.
    That He is not be trusted to reward the righteous and 
    punish the unscrupulous.
    That He maketh the poor poorer but is otherwise
undependable. 
    It could be said of Him that it is His school of the germane
that produced the Congressional Record.
    That it is His vision of justice that gave us cost accounting.
    It could be said of Him that though we walk with Him all
the days of our lives we will never fathom Him
    Because He is empty. 
    These are the dark images of our Lord 
    That make it seem needful for us to pray not unto Him 
    But ourselves. 
    But when we do that we find that indeed we are truly lost  
    And we rush back into the safer fold, impressed by His care 
for us.

(from Good Poems, selected by Garrison Keillor, Penguin, 2002)

A Sabbath Poem (Berry)

   MANIFESTO: THE MAD FARMER LIBERATION FRONT

   ~ by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, 
vacation with pay. Want more 
of everything ready-made. Be afraid 
to know your neighbors and die. 
And you will have a window in your head. 
Not even your future will be a mystery 
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card 
and shut away in a little drawer. 
When they want you to buy something 
they will call you. When they want you 
to die for profit they will let you know. 
So, friends, every day do something 
that won’t compute. Love the Lord. 
Love the world. Work for nothing. 
Take all that you have and be poor. 
Love someone who does not deserve it. 
Denounce the government and embrace 
the flag. Hope to live in that free 
republic for which it stands. 
Give your approval to all you cannot 
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man 
has not encountered he has not destroyed. 
Ask the questions that have no answers. 
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest 
that you did not plant, 
that you will not live to harvest. 
Say that the leaves are harvested 
when they have rotted into the mold. 
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. 
Put your faith in the two inches of humus 
that will build under the trees 
every thousand years. 
Listen to carrion—put your ear 
close, and hear the faint chattering 
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh. 
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful 
though you have considered all the facts. 
So long as women do not go cheap 
for power, please women more than men. 
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy 
a woman satisfied to bear a child? 
Will this disturb the sleep 
of a woman near to giving birth? 
Go with your love to the fields. 
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head 
in her lap. Swear allegiance 
to what is nighest your thoughts. 
As soon as the generals and politicos 
can predict the motions of your mind,  
lose it. Leave a sign 
to mark a false trail, the way 
you didn’t go. Be like the fox 
who makes more tracks than necessary, 
some in the wrong direction
Practice resurrection.

(from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, Counterpoint, 1998)

A Sabbath Poem (Rilke)

          DO NOT BE TROUBLED GOD

          ~ by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

    Do not be troubled, God, though they say “mine” 
    of all things that permit it patiently.
    They are like wind that lightly strokes the boughs 
    and says: MY tree. ...   

    They will say "mine" as one will sometimes call 
    the prince his friend in speech with villagers,
    this prince being very great--and far away. ...
    They still say “mine,” and claim possession, though 
    each thing, as they approach, withdraws and closes; 
    a silly charlatan perhaps thus poses
    as owner of the lightning and the sun.

    And so they say: my life, my wife, my child,
    my dog, well knowing all that they have style
    their own: life, wife, child, dog, remain
    shapes foreign and unknown, 
    that blindly groping they must stumble on.

    This truth, be sure, only the great discern,
    who long for eyes. The others WILL not learn
    that in the beggary of their wandering 
    they cannot claim a bond with any thing,
    but, driven from possessions they have prized,
    not by their own belongings recognized,
    they can OWN WIVES no more than they own flowers, 
    whose life is alien and apart from ours.

    God, do not lose your equilibrium.
    Even he who loves you and discerns you face
    in darkness, when he trembles like a light
    you breath upon, —he cannot own you quite.
    And if at night one holds you closely pressed,
    locked in his prayer so you cannot stray,
    you are the guest 
    who comes, but not to stay.

    God, who can hold you? To yourself alone 
    belonging, by no owner’s hand disturbed, 
    you are like unripened wine that unperturbed
    grows sweeter and is all its own.

(from the Poems From the Book of Hours, New Directions Publishing, 1941)

A Sabbath Poem (Falk)

                         WILL

                  ~ by Marcia Falk

               Three generations back

               my family had only

               to light a candle

               and the world parted.

               Today, Friday afternoon,

               I disconnect clocks and phones.

               When night fills my house

               with passages,

               I begin saving

               my life.

(from Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy
Lives, by Wayne Muller, Bantam Books, 1999, on this website)

A Sabbath Poem (Hafiz)

TWO GIANT FAT PEOPLE ~ Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (c. 1320-1389)
God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat.
We keep bumping into each other and
l a u g h i n g .

(from the Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices
from the East and West, translation Daniel Ladinsky
- Penguin Compass, 2002)

A Sabbath Poem (Aquinas)

By popular demand, we will again be posting Sabbath Poems every Friday, from diversity of traditions, poems that speak to our weary inner life guiding us into rest. We welcome your suggestions!

EVERY FOOT A SHRINE

~ St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274)
Every creature has a religion. Every foot is a shrine where a secret candle burns.
Every cell in us worships God.
Every arrow in the bow of desire has rushed out in hope of nearing Him.

(from the Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices
from the East and West, translation Daniel Ladinsky
- Penguin Compass, 2002)

Blizzard Sabbath Poem (Basho)

COME, LET'S GO
~ by Matsuo Basho (Japanese, 1644 - 1694)

Come, let's go
snow-viewing
till we're buried.
 

From Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Translated by Lucien Stryk / Translated by Takashi Ikemoto

Blizzard Sabbath Poem (Levin)

THE BLIZZARD
~ by Phillis Levin (American, 1955- )

Now that the worst is over, they predict
Something messy and difficult, though not
Life-threatening. Clearly we needed

To stock up on water and candles, making
Tureens of soup and things that keep
When electricity fails and phone lines fall.

Igloos rise on air conditioners, gargoyles
Fly and icicles shatter. Frozen runways,
Lines in markets, and paralyzed avenues

Verify every fear. But there is warmth
In this sudden desire to sleep,
To surrender to our common condition

With joy, watching hours of news
Devoted to weather. People finally stop
To talk to each other - the neighbors

We didn't know were always here.
Today they are ready for business,
Armed with a new vocabulary,

Casting their saga in phrases as severe
As last night's snow: damage assessment,
Evacuation, emergency management.

The shift of the wind matters again,
And we are so simple, so happy to hear
The scrape of a shovel next door.
 

from Mercury by Phillis Levin

Blizzard Sabbath Poem (Hui-k'ai)

TEN THOUSAND FLOWERS IN SPRING, THE MOON IN AUTUMN
~ by Wu Men (Hui-k'ai) (Chinese, 1183 - 1260)

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

 
From The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell

Sabbath Poem (St. John of the Cross - 3)

IF YOU WANT
~ by St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)

If
You Want,

the Virgin will come walking down the road

pregnant with the holy, 

and say,

“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,

my time is so close.”

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime

intimacy, the divine, the Christ

taking birth

forever,

as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us

is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation

come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim—

the sacred womb in your soul,

as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is

His beloved servant

never 
far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking

down the street pregnant

with Light and
 sing ...

(from the Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, translation Daniel Ladinsky, Penguin Compass)

Sabbath Poem (Mansour - 2)

THE EAST WEST
~ Ali Mansour

Between the east and the west — there is a hole
I found my self in it
I couldn’t reach the west — neither could I go back to the east
All I can do — I scream and say
YA ALLAH (OH GOD) ALLAH hay ALLAH hay (GOD is a life)
Every body heard me —
And all came running … looking at me
From the edge of the hole
I hear them saying SUBHAN ALLAH (GOD IS GREAT)
WLA HAULA WLA QOHWATA ELA BELLAH
(GOD holds all the power)
The haven is here … the haven … the haven is here 
I raise my hands and say … take me with you … with you … you
Everybody tries to grab one of my hands and pull me up
But I didn’t go anywhere
I felt crucified ... like JESUS had been
Trying to unifying east and west
Oh God is this punishment or praise?
I’m screaming from the pain … Or
I’m cheering for the praise !
I don’t know any more
I mumble with voices no one can understand
Neither from the east nor from the west
But they are still trying to reach my hands
In order to save me … Or to be with me
And no one can do
Except you — the one up there
The one in the center
The one and the only one ... can pull me out of the hole
…or push them down with me
So we all can sing for you  
Anta el HADY anta el HAQ lis la hady il ALLHA
(YOU are the truth and the One can show us
the real road “direct path”)
La ILLAHA … il ALLAH … La Illaha … il ALLAH
(there is no God, but Allah the unique, and the only one)
YA HU   
             YA HU                                      

             YA HU           YA HU                    

Ali Mansour wrote this for our Living Room on "Walking More than One Path"                              

Sabbath Poem (Amichai)

JERUSALEM 1967
~ Yehuda Amichai

On Yom Kippur 5728, I donned
Dark holiday clothing and walked to Jerusalem’s Old City.
I stood for quite a while in front of the kiosk shop of an Arab,
Not far from Shchem (Nablus) Gate, a shop
full of buttons, zippers and spools of thread
Of every color; and snaps and buckles.
Brightly lit and many colored like the open Holy Ark.

I said to him in my heart that my father too
Owned a shop just like this of buttons and thread.
I explained to him in my heart about all the decades
And the reasons and the events leading me to be here now
While my father’s shop burned there and he is buried here.

When I concluded it was the hour of N’eilah (”locking the gates”).
He too drew down the shutters and locked the gate
As I returned homeward with all the other worshippers.

–from Achshav B’ Ra’ash (”Now, Noisily”) (Schocken, 1975), page 11-12 translation by Richard Silverstein

 

Flickr Photo by Oxana Nosach 

Sabbath Poem (Darwish)

IN JERUSALEM
~ by Mahmoud Darwish
   Translated by Fady Joudah

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love
and peace are holy and are coming to town.
I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How
do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?
Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?
I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see
no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.
All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly
then I become another. Transfigured. Words
sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger
mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t believe.”
I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white
biblical rose. And my hands like two doves
on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.
I don’t walk, I fly, I become another,
transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?
I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I
think to myself: Alone, the prophet Mohammad
spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”
Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me . . . and I forgot, like you, to die.

Sabbath Poem (Roberts)

HALLOWEEN PRAYER OF INVOCATION

~ W. Hunter Roberts

Oh Great Regenerator of Life,
your children cling to color in a world set to turn black and white.

Please understand,
and be with us as these autumn days turn toward darkness.

For we know the leaves must finally blow away;
the flowers must die.

Only the brave chrysanthemum will remain,
in colors of rust and gold.

Then she too will bow her last farewell.

 

Lord of all wisdom,
help us trust the stripping bare each year

That life be born anew.

Help us remember:
your ways renew better than our own, which attach and cling.

Help us trust,
as we prepare to gaze on bare trees, that beneath the earth, unseen,

Your promise is planted deep in our soil.

Oh God, our truth and our salvation,
our life is eternal only in yours,

Amen.

Written for Royal Oak Church of the Holy City, 2005

Sabbath Poem (Mansour)

WHO ARE WE?
~ by Ali Mansour

who am I?
and who are you?
I’m drops of rain in the air!
I can not count nor calculate either of you
you see through it
and when collected
I become the river going through rooks and sand
sometimes the raging one  I come with destructions
but most of the time I’m calmer and gentler
when you ride me I take you places
you never dreamt about
I will show you the wonderland
I’m the life table for you
and when you’re hot and dirty
I clean and cool you
say I you
I say stop  — to all those drops and dust
but they keep moving  — with all its particles
forming that great ocean with all its creations
is that where I come from?
no wonder that they call me the ocean
I’m the falcon flying over you
catching the fish swimming in you
So say I’m you
I’m all the order of being
the tree on the embankment
the fish and the mammal
I’m the reef  — silent  — thoughts  — inelegant
I’m the screaming wind creating the clouds
the hurricane coming to shore
to be drops of rain again
to become a life after death —
or death after life! —
what it is? And what it isn’t?
what is right and what is wrong
Say I am
I say  —  I — you
YA HU  YA HU   YA HU

Ali Mansour is a Sufi Dervish who regularly attends Faith House Manhattan and sometimes reads us poems.  Thank you, Ali, for sending this text for us to publish!

Sabbath Poem (Levertov)

THE AVOWAL
~Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Note from Bowie ~

Last Saturday, September 26, I heard leading Historical Jesus scholar Marcus Borg speak at the First Congregational Church in Hendersonville, NC.  He was amazing and recited this poem from memory at the end of his presentation, twice!

Interestingly, many of the Q&A from the group gathered were related to being faithful Christians in a world of many faiths and the Jesus "is the only way" texts in the Bible.  He answered these questions with insight and grace, focusing on the transformation possible in this life, rather than a promise of salvation in the next.  At one point he quoted a Hindu scholar who once preached on John 14:6 saying, "Jesus is the only way and that way is known to all religions of the world." 

Look for Marcus Borg's endorsement in the first pages of Samir's new book!

Sabbath Poem (Walker)

NEW FACE                     

~Alice Walker                                   

I have learned

Not to worry

About love:

But to honor

Its coming

With all my heart.

To examine the dark mysteries

Of the blood

With headless heed

And swirl,

To know the rush

Of feelings

Swift

And flowing

As Water.

The source
Appears to be

Some inexhaustible

Spring

Within

Our twin

And triple

Selves.

The new face

I turn up

To you

No one else

On earth

Has ever

Seen.

 

Sabbath Poem (Rabia)

ISHQ

~ Juliet rabia Gentile

I was a rose.
He sang my praises,
and I burned,
til there was nothing left.
 
I was a star.
He drew near
and I expired, 
falling back into the sun.
 
I was an ocean.
He traversed my entirety
and I became foam on a forgotten sea-
lost, and then
found. 

 

Sabbath Poem (Eckhart - 3)

THE SEED OF GOD
~ Meister Eckhart

The seed of God is in us. 

Given an intelligent

and hardworking farmer,

it will thrive and grow

up into God, whose seed

it is; and accordingly its

fruits will be God-nature.

Pear seeds grow into 

pear trees, nut seeds

into nut trees, and

God seeds into God.

(From 100 Graces: Mealtime Blessings, selected by Marcia & Jack Kelly)

Sabbath Poem (St. Vincent Millay)

MODERN DECLARATION
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having wavered
In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the rich
    or in the presence of clergymen having denied these loves;
Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having grunted
    or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of those loves;
Never when anxious to land a job having diminished them
    by a conniving smile; or when befuddled by drink
Jeered at them through heartache or lazily fondled the fingers
    of their alert enemies; declare

That I shall love you always.
No matter what party is in power;
No matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied interests
    wins the war;
Shall love you always.

(Thank you to Leah Varsano for sending us this poem!)

Sabbath Poem (Whyte - 2)

THE TRUELOVE
~ David Whyte

There's a faith in loving fiercely the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have waited years and especially if part of you never
believed you could deserve this loved and beckoning hand held
out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides I remember an old man
who would walk every morning on the gray stones
to the shore of baying seals, who would press his
hat to his chest in the blustering salt wind and say his
prayer to the turbulent Jesus hidden in the waters.

And I think of the story of the storm and the people
waking and seeing the distant, yet familiar figure,
far across the water calling to them.
And how we are all preparing for that abrupt waking
and that calling and that moment when we have to say yes!
Except it will not come so grandly, so biblically,
but more subtly, and intimately in the face
of the one you know you have to love.
So that when we finally step out of the boat
toward them we find, everything holds us,
and everything confirms our courage.

And if you wanted to drown, you could,
But you don't, because finally, after all
this struggle and all these years,
you don't want to anymore.
You've simply had enough of drowning
and you want to live, and you want to love.
And you'll walk across any territory,
and any darkness, however fluid,
and however dangerous to take the one
hand and the one life, you know belongs in yours.    

(from The House of Belonging, 1997)

Thank you Leah Varsano for sending us this poem!