Rilke, Rumi, cummings, Mary Oliver . . .

So many poems are wonderful teishos.

I’ve been reading poetry to Carys, our four-year old, at bedtime lately.

Rediscovering poems I loved as a child.

Like this one by e.e. cummings:

 

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)

 

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

 

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

 

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

 

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

 

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find at the sea

 

 

 

There’s so much wisdom to be found in song lyrics.

 

There’s also plenty of drivel.  I guess it’s all in the ear of the beholder.

 

I’m partial to stuff at the intersection of folk and rock, sometimes leaning a little one way, sometimes leaning a little the other.  Here are just a few of the many, many songs in this broad genre that speak to me dharmically.