Who (be quiet) Are You?

 The Inner Flame 

Wind and bobwhite and the afternoon sun. 
By ceasing to question the sun, 
I have become light, bird, wind, 
I am earth, earth. All these lighted things 
Grow from my heart. 
A tall, spare pine stands like the initial of my first name 
When I had one. When I had a spirit. 
When I was on fire, when the valley was made 
out of fresh air, you spoke my name 
in naming your silence, O sweet irrational worship! 
My heart’s love bursts with hay and flowers. 
I am a lake of blue air in which my own appointed place 
Field and valley stand reflected. 
I am earth, earth. Out of my grass heart rises the bobwhite. 
Out of my nameless weeds, foolish worship.

~Thomas Merton, O Sweet Irrational Worship, 1963

(Photo by Sabine Fischer)

O sweet spontaneous

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

                     fingers of
purient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

          beauty        .how
oftn have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
                (but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

                   thou answerest


them only with


spring) 


~ e e cummings (Thanks for this poem to the beautiful peacefulpresence blog)

(Photo by Mieke Boynton)

Crescent Moon, Earth’s Atmosphere

A setting last quarter crescent moon and the thin line of Earth’s atmosphere are photographed by an Expedition 24 crew member as the International Space Station passes over central Asia.

Image credit: NASA