The Times We’re Living In

On the other side of all this deathing
An intensive labor is going on
It is easy to see the deathing,
But not so easy to see what is birthing
Beneath the surface of the world,
Getting ready to emerge
Like a newborn crowning.
On the other side of all this deathing
As old ways of domination and violation
Fight to hold sway,
A great birthing has begun,
The birth of a new way of being in the world
A way of re-connection and shared power,
A way of cooperation and love.
Those of us who see it
Must hold the vision
And speak it,
Not only to those we know
But to those with whom we have casual encounters,
Our cab driver, neighbor, or waitress at the cafe,
The friend of a friend we meet at a party.
Otherwise,
Reading the news, surfing the net, watching T.V.
It may seem impossible to imagine
That a world based in love is in the process of being born.
And it is in the imagining
When new possibilities are perceived,
That new realities can be conceived.
We are in labor with our own rebirth and
We are midwives guiding the world’s rebirth
It is a long and hard labor
And sometimes it’s frightening
Until we remember we are birthing our full humanity,
Our humanness
And our humaneness
We are flowering out of the mud of our darkest time of separation
Evolving from the time of me to the time of we
This time is difficult, yes, but it is also juicy and joyous.
It is not easy to soar through mud
But mud is rich and fertile
And out of mud

The lotus blooms.

© Robin Rose Bennett 2011

SONNET 24 by William Shakespeare.

Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective it is the painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies;
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;
They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

SONNET 23 by William Shakespeare.

As an unperfect actor on the stage, 
Who with his fear is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,O'ercharg'd with burden of mine own love's might.
O let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. 

William Ernest Henley

His Excuse for Loving by Ben Jonson.

Let it not your wonder move,Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have, my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men,
Some have lov'd as old again.And it is not always face,Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace;
Or the feature, or the youth.But the language and the truth,
With the ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,First prepare you to be sorry
That you never knew till now
Either whom to love or how;But be glad, as soon with me,When you know that this is she
Of whose beauty it was sung;She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,And let nothing high decay,Till she be the reason why
All the world for love may die.

SONNET 21 by William Shakespeare.

So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse;
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, 
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse;
Making a couplement of proud compare,
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O' let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
Let them say more than like of hearsay well;
I will not praise, that purpose not to sell.

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"