a little bit of poetry :)

tonight i was at a friend's house for a music night and part of it involved ppl sharing poems. i shared two poems that i really love that one of my best friends sent me while i was on my mission. it was one of the best gifts i received because they just ended up meaning a lot to me. so i wanted to share one of them because it seems fitting with the wonderful weather we've been having lately that magnifies how beautiful everything is (sun = able to see more beauty). 

i also wanted to share another poem that i hadn't heard before but that i also liked. it is about someone named "hokusai" who says wise things. :)

God's Grandeur

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. 

It will flame out, like shining oil from shook foil; 

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Hokusai says

by Roger Keyes

Hokusai says Look carefully.

He says pay attention, notice.

He says keep looking, stay curious.

He says there is no end to seeing.

He says Look Forward to getting old.

He says keep changing,

you just get more who you really are.

He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself

as long as it's interesting.

He says keep doing what you love.

He says keep praying.

He says every one of us is a child,

every one of us is ancient,

every one of us has a body.

He says every one of us is frightened.

He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive--

shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees.

Wood is alive.

Water is alive.

Everything has its own life.

Everything lives inside us.

He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn't matter if you draw, or write books.

It doesn't matter if you saw wood, or catch fish.

It doesn't matter if you sit at home

and stare at the ants on your verandah or the shadows of the trees

It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

It matters that you notice.

It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you.

Joy is life living through you.

Satisfaction and strength 

are life living through you.

Peace is life living through you.

He says don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid.

Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.