Awakening Presence Week 3
Here you will find:
1) The recorded readings of this week's poems
2) The poems
3) The downloadable Psalms worksheet
1) The recorded readings of this week's poems
2) The poems
3) The downloadable Psalms worksheet
Psalms of Lament
"O Me! O Life!"
by Walt Whitman
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
"What Came to Me"
by Jane Kenyon
I took the last
dusty piece of china
out of the barrel.
It was your gravy boat,
with a hard, brown
drop of gravy still
on the porcelain lip.
I grieved for you then
as I never had before.
From The Sorrow Psalms: A Book of Twentieth-Century Elegy edited by Lynn Strongin. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
Psalms of Praise
"You Envelop Me [Excerpt]"
by Laynie Browne
16
for I have taken refuge in you
A book —whose wings— swallow me
Bird, created from water mixed with sand
Uses of wings, and claws hold oil for lamps
Conceiving a wing-ed book is beginning to sort one’s thoughts
An egg placed under the foot of a bedframe— to steady
Quills for writing were unknown in Talmudic times
Birds of three hundred and sixty-five hues read
Headlines or psalms as an indistinguishable combination of
Affliction, concentration and praise
“Flee as a bird to your mountain.”
Note on poem from You Envelop Me: Numbers for poems and text at the beginning of each poem in italics are taken from psalms (various translations). These particular psalms, often identified as Nachman’s “healing psalms” were chosen by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810, Ukraine) and are traditionally read during mourning. This practice exemplifies Nachmans’ use of sacred texts as meditative tools, and highlights his religious philosophy which revolves around intimacy and direct conversation with divine.
"A List of Praises"
by Anne Porter
Give praise with psalms that tell the trees to sing,
Give praise with Gospel choirs in storefront churches,
Mad with the joy of the Sabbath,
Give praise with the babble of infants, who wake with the sun,
Give praise with children chanting their skip-rope rhymes,
A poetry not in books, a vagrant mischievous poetry
living wild on the Streets through generations of children.
Give praise with the sound of the milk-train far away
With its mutter of wheels and long-drawn-out sweet whistle
As it speeds through the fields of sleep at three in the morning,
Give praise with the immense and peaceful sigh
Of the wind in the pinewoods,
At night give praise with starry silences.
Give praise with the skirling of seagulls
And the rattle and flap of sails
And gongs of buoys rocked by the sea-swell
Out in the shipping-lanes beyond the harbor.
Give praise with the humpback whales,
Huge in the ocean they sing to one another.
Give praise with the rasp and sizzle of crickets, katydids and cicadas,
Give praise with hum of bees,
Give praise with the little peepers who live near water.
When they fill the marsh with a shimmer of bell-like cries
We know that the winter is over.
Give praise with mockingbirds, day’s nightingales.
Hour by hour they sing in the crepe myrtle
And glossy tulip trees
On quiet side streets in southern towns.
Give praise with the rippling speech
Of the eider-duck and her ducklings
As they paddle their way downstream
In the red-gold morning
On Restiguche, their cold river,
Salmon river,
Wilderness river.
Give praise with the whitethroat sparrow.
Far, far from the cities,
Far even from the towns,
With piercing innocence
He sings in the spruce-tree tops,
Always four notes
And four notes only.
Give praise with water,
With storms of rain and thunder
And the small rains that sparkle as they dry,
And the faint floating ocean roar
That fills the seaside villages,
And the clear brooks that travel down the mountains
And with this poem, a leaf on the vast flood,
And with the angels in that other country.
"O Me! O Life!"
by Walt Whitman
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
"What Came to Me"
by Jane Kenyon
I took the last
dusty piece of china
out of the barrel.
It was your gravy boat,
with a hard, brown
drop of gravy still
on the porcelain lip.
I grieved for you then
as I never had before.
From The Sorrow Psalms: A Book of Twentieth-Century Elegy edited by Lynn Strongin. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
Psalms of Praise
"You Envelop Me [Excerpt]"
by Laynie Browne
16
for I have taken refuge in you
A book —whose wings— swallow me
Bird, created from water mixed with sand
Uses of wings, and claws hold oil for lamps
Conceiving a wing-ed book is beginning to sort one’s thoughts
An egg placed under the foot of a bedframe— to steady
Quills for writing were unknown in Talmudic times
Birds of three hundred and sixty-five hues read
Headlines or psalms as an indistinguishable combination of
Affliction, concentration and praise
“Flee as a bird to your mountain.”
Note on poem from You Envelop Me: Numbers for poems and text at the beginning of each poem in italics are taken from psalms (various translations). These particular psalms, often identified as Nachman’s “healing psalms” were chosen by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810, Ukraine) and are traditionally read during mourning. This practice exemplifies Nachmans’ use of sacred texts as meditative tools, and highlights his religious philosophy which revolves around intimacy and direct conversation with divine.
"A List of Praises"
by Anne Porter
Give praise with psalms that tell the trees to sing,
Give praise with Gospel choirs in storefront churches,
Mad with the joy of the Sabbath,
Give praise with the babble of infants, who wake with the sun,
Give praise with children chanting their skip-rope rhymes,
A poetry not in books, a vagrant mischievous poetry
living wild on the Streets through generations of children.
Give praise with the sound of the milk-train far away
With its mutter of wheels and long-drawn-out sweet whistle
As it speeds through the fields of sleep at three in the morning,
Give praise with the immense and peaceful sigh
Of the wind in the pinewoods,
At night give praise with starry silences.
Give praise with the skirling of seagulls
And the rattle and flap of sails
And gongs of buoys rocked by the sea-swell
Out in the shipping-lanes beyond the harbor.
Give praise with the humpback whales,
Huge in the ocean they sing to one another.
Give praise with the rasp and sizzle of crickets, katydids and cicadas,
Give praise with hum of bees,
Give praise with the little peepers who live near water.
When they fill the marsh with a shimmer of bell-like cries
We know that the winter is over.
Give praise with mockingbirds, day’s nightingales.
Hour by hour they sing in the crepe myrtle
And glossy tulip trees
On quiet side streets in southern towns.
Give praise with the rippling speech
Of the eider-duck and her ducklings
As they paddle their way downstream
In the red-gold morning
On Restiguche, their cold river,
Salmon river,
Wilderness river.
Give praise with the whitethroat sparrow.
Far, far from the cities,
Far even from the towns,
With piercing innocence
He sings in the spruce-tree tops,
Always four notes
And four notes only.
Give praise with water,
With storms of rain and thunder
And the small rains that sparkle as they dry,
And the faint floating ocean roar
That fills the seaside villages,
And the clear brooks that travel down the mountains
And with this poem, a leaf on the vast flood,
And with the angels in that other country.
| ap_psalms_worksheet.doc |