It Came Upon Me With No Name

Posting some beautiful poems and essay I found while surfing the net. Oh, the good things you can find!

“Everything around you—maybe it’s a palm tree,
dripping water, cars honking, people racing past
you— everything feels ecstatic when you free
yourself into the moment. You recognize your
interconnectedness, and all these things in a moment
can become mystical doorways for the Soul.”

-- Ram Dass, Still Here

***

It came upon me with no name and it was beautiful and I couldn’t describe it but I tried. It 

came upon me both hard and soft, hard like a punch in your belly, when you’re not expecting 

it, so it really lays you low, and soft like a breath in your ear, whispering something you really 

like in a secret language that you do not know. Now how, you ask, could it be both hard and

soft? Good question. And the answer is I don’t know, for it came upon me without a name, 

without expectation. No explain of what it was, how long it would stay, or where, after it went, 

it would go.

-- It came upon me with no name, The Cenacle, Number 84


***

Don't write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your
dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place.

-- Letters to a Young Poet