Each that we lose takes a part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1634)
crescent moon abides
Tag: stars
swallowing the sun
Like the prodigal son
I return to you, the sea.
You who scare the idylls off
into tame inner fjords, bays and inlets
because you are much too majestic for weekend yachtsmen,
outboard motors and hobby anglers.
Without so much as a blink you swallow the sun
like a raw egg-yolk for supper
and at daybreak you lift heavy banks of cloud
dense with rain and squalls, a wet cloth
on sleep-heavy eyes and throbbing temples.
With the horizon like a diadem about your brows
you write your salt letters to the shore.
Land changes,
men and beasts come and go.
Only you
live your solitary life, the world’s
blue eyes fixed on the stars and eternity.
If the Earth has a soul,
it swims in you.
~ Kolbein Falkeid
(Homecoming to the Sea)
scattering stars
We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.
~ Rumi
(Teachers of Wisdom)
a life story
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
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) ♫
painting the stars
When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.
~ Vincent van Gogh
(An Examined Faith: Social Context & Religious Commitment)
one sweet world
One sweet world
Around this star is spinning
One sweet world
And in her breath I’m swimming
And here we will rest in peace
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (One Sweet World) ♫
The earth itself assures us it is a living entity. Deep below surface one can hear its slow pulse, feel its vibrant rhythm. The great breathing mountains expand and contract. The vast sage desert undulates with almost imperceptible tides like the oceans. From the very beginning, throughout all its cataclysmic upthrusts and deep sea submergences, the planet Earth seems to have maintained an ordered rhythm.
~ Frank Waters
(Mountain Dialogues)
bits of stellar matter
We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
~ Arthur Eddington
(Our Place in the Universe)
We’ve all got stardust in our bones.
~ Ben Harper
♫ (Get It Like You Like It) ♫
Our planet, our society, and we ourselves are built of star stuff.
~ Carl Sagan
(Cosmos)
We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
~ Joni Mitchell
♫ (Woodstock) ♫
dreams of change
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
~ Harriet Tubman
(Atlanta Magazine, April 2008)
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
~ John Lennon
♫ (Imagine) ♫