Author: Ian Trimnell

To Live in the Mercy of God By Denise Levertov To lie back under the tallest oldest trees. How far the stems rise, rise before ribs of shelter open! To live in the mercy of God. The complete sentence too adequate, has no give. Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of stony wood beneath lenient moss bed....

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the...

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins  Glory be to God for dappled things — For skies of couple-color as a brindled cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscapes plotted and pieced-fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle,...

How Can I Repay You by Tychon of Zadonsk  How shall I repay your generosity, O my Lover? How shall I repay you for all you have given me? If I had died a thousand times for your sake, it would be as nothing. You are my Lord, and I am just clay and ashes, a...

My Heart Leaps Up By William Wordsworth   My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I...

You who want knowledge, see the Oneness within. There you will find the clear mirror already waiting. Hadewijch II (Antwerp, 13th century) [translated by Jane Hirshfield] Good evening and welcome to Evening Prayers That this evening may be holy, good and peaceful, let us pray with one heart and mind. Silence is kept.  As our evening...

Che Fece… Il Gran Refiuto For some people the day comes when they have to declare the great Yes or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes ready within him; and saying it, he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction. He who refuses does not repent. Asked again, he’d...

Already I By Choi Seungja  Translated from the Korean by Won-Chung Kim & Cathy Park Hong  Already I was nothing: mold formed on stale bread, trail of piss stains on the wall, a maggot-covered corpse a thousand years old. Nobody raised me. I was nothing from the beginning, sleeping in a rat’s hole, nibbling on the...

Afternoon in the House By Jane Kenyon  It’s quiet here. The cats sprawl, each in a favored place. The geranium leans this way to see if I’m writing about her: head all petals, brown stalks, and those green fans. So you see, I am writing about you. I turn on the radio. Wrong. Let’s not have...

A  Familiar  Silence … Harlon Rivers  The hollow wind funneled the voice of the distant night-train crossings, awakening  a  familiar  silence hanging from the vast wilderness sky A restless heart hearkening the echoes, imagining  a  runaway  Pullman flew away off the rails,    airborne on the winged wind headed north Winter  pausing  for a moment in  the  shadows  of  familiarity, as if parsing the unspoken breathings in an  echoless  surrendered sigh; uncertain...

A Vision By Wendell Berry  If we will have the wisdom to survive, to stand like slow-growing trees on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it, if we will make our seasons welcome here, asking not too much of earth or heaven, then a long time after we are dead the lives our lives prepare will live...

Awakening By Christi Michaels Moon Flower  I have traveled this road. I have traveled this road since first I came to be here. This journey was my awakening to the new existence I would step into. Foreign to me the illustrious homes. Dripping willows, old oaks, poplars… Perfectly kept grounds. Checkerboard patterns carved into lush grass....