Author: Ian Trimnell

WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR by Rabindranath Tagore 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;...

TREES by Mark Haddon They stand in parks and graveyards and gardens. Some of them are taller than department stores, yet they do not draw attention to themselves. You will be fitting a heated towel rail one day and see, through the louvre window, a shoal of olive-green fish changing direction in the air that swims...

FOUR IN THE MORNING by Wislawa Szymborska The hour from night to day. The hour from side to side. The hour for those past thirty. The hour swept clean to the crowing of cocks. The hour when earth betrays us. The hour when wind blows from extinguished stars. The hour of and-what-if-nothing-remains-after-us. The hollow hour. Blank,...

The Spiritual Canticle By  John of the Cross O soul, most beautiful among all creatures, you who so long to know the place where your Beloved is, so as to seek him and become one with him, now it has been stated: you yourself are the home in which he dwells. Here is a reason to be...

The Ascent of Mount Carmel [Dark Night of the Soul] By  John of the Cross On a dark night, Inflamed by love-longing— O exquisite risk!— Undetected I slipped away. My house, at last, grown still. Secure in the darkness, I climbed the secret ladder in disguise— O exquisite risk!— Concealed by the darkness. My house, at last,...

SNOWDROPS by Louise Glück Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know what despair is; then winter should have meaning for you. I did not expect to survive, earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect to waken again, to feel in damp earth my body able to respond again, remembering after so long how...

ORANGES by Mary Oliver Cut one, the lace of acid rushes out, spills over your hands. You lick them, manners don’t come into it. Orange. The first word you have heard that day enters your mind. Everybody then does what he or she wants; breakfast is casual. Slices, quarters, halves, or the whole hand holding an...

HOW IT IS by Maxine Kumin Shall I say how it is in your clothes? A month after your death I wear your blue jacket. The dog at the center of my life recognizes you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic. In the left pocket, a hole. In the right, a parking ticket delivered up last August...

1964 by Jorge Luis Borges II. I will no longer be happy. Maybe it doesn’t matter. there are many other things in the world; any moment is more profound and diverse than the sea. Life is short and though hours are very long, a dark delight lies in wait for us Death, that other sea, the...

1964 by Jorge Luis Borges I. The world has lost its magic. They have left you. You no longer share the clear moon nor the slow gardens. Now there is no moon that isn’t a mirror to the past, Solitary crystal, anguished sun. Goodbye to the mutual hands and the temples that brought love closer. Today...

The voice by Shel Silverstein  There is a voice inside of you that whispers all day long, ‘I feel that this is right for me, I know that this is wrong.’ No teacher, preacher, parent, friend or wise man can decide what’s right for you – just listen to the voice that speaks inside. Good evening...

After the diagnosis by Christian Wiman No remembering now when the apple sapling was blown almost out of the ground. No telling how, with all the other trees around, it alone was struck. It must have been luck, he thought for years, so close to the house it grew. It must have been night. Change is...

Earthseed by Octavia Butler Here we are– Energy, Mass, Life, Shaping life, Mind, Shaping Mind God, Shaping God. Consider— We are born Not with purpose, But with potential. All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change. God Is Change. Good evening and welcome to Evening Prayers...

The lost baby poem by Lucille Clifton the time i dropped your almost body down down to meet the waters under the city and run one with the sewage to the sea what did i know about waters rushing back what did i know about drowning or being drowned you would have been born into winter...

The happiest day by Linda Pastan It was early May, I think a moment of lilac or dogwood when so many promises are made it hardly matters if a few are broken. My mother and father still hovered in the background, part of the scenery like the houses I had grown up in, and if they...