New Beginnings Make New Endings

New Beginnings Make New Endings

With lots of life between
It's what you put into your life
It is not these other things.
You will never know
What lies ahead
Choosing not to dream, instead.

New Beginnings Make New Endings
with much success ahead
If gently and tenderly
You choose to love it day by day
And be thankful its graces
You will find it to guide you
You will never be afraid.

New Beginnings Make New Endings.
Like nothing you've ever seen.
Just looking at a sewing needle
It's not the eye of the needle
That makes the impression on you
But amazingly it is the thread
That makes its appeal to you.

Sonnet LXXXI

And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.

No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.

Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away; your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move

after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.

The New Dog

Into the gravity of my life, 

the serious ceremonies 

of polish and paper 

and pen, has come 

this manic animal 

whose innocent disruptions 

make nonsense 

of my old simplicities-- 

as if I needed him 

to prove again that after 

all the careful planning, 

anything can happen.

Brown Penny

I whispered, "I am too young,"

And then, "I am old enough;" 

Wherefore I threw a penny 

To find out if I might love. 

"Go and love, go and love, young man, 

If the lady be young and fair." 

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, 

I am looped in the loops of her hair. 

O love is the crooked thing, 

There is nobody wise enough 

To find out all that is in it, 

For he would be thinking of love 

Till the stars had run away 

And the shadows eaten the moon. 

Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, 

One cannot begin it too soon.

Note: The poet starts by wondering if there's a right age for love, so he flips a coin and takes a chance. He says that no one knows all that is involved in Love, it'll take more than a lifetime to understand it, so one just has to take a risk.

Let the old ways go

A New Year is here once more,
With its visions of future promise.
The old ways passed by,
And a fresh start, there for the taking.
All is optimism;
Gloom is gone!
Looking forward to the innocent blossoming of spring
Blooming into a youthful, balmy summer.
But the world does not change.
That beautiful vision of new cleanness
Comes from within;
From the hope for a better world,
And a desire to let the old ways go.

Life

I made a posy, while the day ran by;
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band.

But time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart:
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time’s gentle admonition :

Who did so sweetly death’s sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day;
Yet sug’ring the suspicion.

Farewell dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
And after death for cures.

I follow straight without complaints or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not, if
It be as short as yours.

It Felt Love

How

Did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world

All its

Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its

Being,

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too

Frightened.

-Hafiz, c. 1320 to 1389, a beautiful, mystic, Sufi poet from Persia

Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Who ever loved

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;

And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
     And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
     And auld lang syne!
     Chorus: 
     For auld lang syne, my dear,
     For auld lang syne.
     We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
     For auld lang syne.
And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
     And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
     For auld lang syne.
     Chorus
We twa hae run about the braes,
     And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
     Sin' auld lang syne.
     Chorus
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
     Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
     Sin' auld lang syne.
     Chorus
And there's a hand, my trusty fere!
     And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught,
     For auld lang syne.
     Chorus

Note: Although the credit for this timeless New Year song goes to Robert Burns, he himself has said that it was a traditional song that he has merely put in writing. Auld Lang Syne loosely translates to 'for (the sake of) old times'. Wikipedia provides the complete meaning and pronunciation guide which is very helpful.