Two Poems

Just getting back from a lovely Divine Mercy retreat weekend that I assisted with at a nearby retreat center…

No time or energy for original blogging today, but two of my favorite commentors left poems on the previous post Light Pollution and I was so taken with both of them I thought I would do something I haven’t done before: front page the comments to share the poems with all the blog readers.

Fr. John Flynn shares this one from William Davies:

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

And Catherine shares this one from Rilke:

You, darkness, that I come from,

I love you more than all the fires that fence in the world,

for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone

and then no one on the outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything-

shapes and figures, animals and even myself.

How easily it gathers them powers and people,

and it is possible a Great Presence is moving near me.

I have faith in night.

So, there – you never know what’s going to show up on this blog next. Nothing (much) to do with Pope Benedict, but they’re lovely poems, and beauty is its own justification.