Tag: songs

stars that guide us

"Trapezium Stars" image by NASA & ESA
“Trapezium Stars” image by NASA & ESA

O star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy perfect light
♫ (We Three Kings of Orient Are) ♫

Are you looking for answers, to questions under the stars?
If along the way you are growing weary,
You can rest with me until a brighter day
It’s okay
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (Where Are You Going) ♫

There’s the wind
And the rain
And the mercy of the fallen
Who say, “Hey, it’s not my place
To know what’s right”
There’s the weak
And the strong
And the many stars that guide us
We have some of them inside us
~ Dar Williams
♫ (Mercy of the Fallen) ♫

there to cheer you on

“Young Mother Contemplating Her Sleeping Child in Candlelight” by Albert Anker
“Young Mother Contemplating Her Sleeping Child in Candlelight”
by Albert Anker

All the things you treasure most will be the hardest won
I will watch you struggle long before the answers come
But I won’t make it harder, I’ll be there to cheer you on
I’ll shine the light that guides you down the road you’re walking on
~ Dar Williams
♫ (One Who Knows) ♫

as a brazen wing

eastern pondhawk dragonfly by R. A. Nonenmacher
eastern pondhawk dragonfly by R. A. Nonenmacher

I wound myself in a white cocoon of singing,
   All day long in the brook’s uneven bed,
   Measuring out my soul in a mucous thread;
Dimly now the brook’s green bottom clinging,
   Men behold me, a worm spun-out and dead,
Walled in an iron house of silky singing.

Nevertheless at length, O reedy shallows,
   Not as a plodding nose to the slimy stem,
   But as a brazen wing with a spangled hem,
Over the jewel-weed and the pink marshmallows,
   Free of these and making a song of them,
I shall arise, and a song of the reedy shallows!

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
(The Dragonfly, The Harp Weaver & Other Poems)

Dragonflies & Damselflies

Dragonflies of the Arch

a life story

“Symphony in White No. 3″ by James McNeill Whistler

Gather up your telegrams
Your faded pictures, best laid plans
Books and postcards, 45′s
Every sunset in the sky

Carry with you maps and string, flashlights
Friends who make you sing
And stars to help you find your place
Music, hope and amazing grace

Maybe what we leave
Is nothing but a tangled little mystery
Maybe what we take
Is nothing that has ever had a name

~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
♫ (Your Life Story) ♫

wonder in everything

“A Calling” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
“A Calling” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Wonder in everything
No matter how great or small…
Same thing that’s scrawled across the stars
Is written under our skin…
There’s a time to search for understanding
Sometimes you just got to sing
New horizons, new horizon within
~ David Gray
♫ (New Horizons) ♫

embracing mystery

“Sewing” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
“Sewing” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Some adopt a rigid system that answers all possible questions and so you don’t have to think beyond its systems. The other response is much more seemingly fragile but much more expansive, because it doesn’t lay down a rigid framework. It allows you to move within the mystery of it. And that seems to be flowering right now. I think people are more and more interested in embracing that because they’ve been through everything else. It is a willingness to embrace mystery, a willingness to embrace not knowing, allowing that intuitive awareness to speak.
~ Paul John Roach
(The Translucent Revolution)

There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
~ Emily Saliers
♫ (Closer to Fine) ♫

Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
~ Wisława Szymborska
(Poems New & Collected)