Haven’t posted for a while – have been busy with this thing called “life” – it is incredible how the months rush by. Anyway, I am not going to say much today. Am due to give a reading at Cafe Muse at the Manchester Museum this evening, was sorting through some poems for it, and found a recent(ish) one. It has Buddhist leanings, I guess, but is also a reflection of things that have been beginning and ending in my own life of late. The title I use for want of a better one – it may certainly change or evolve in future!
Beginnings and Endings
Beginnings can be kind: A first drop of rain,
Tip of the sun rising at morning,
First green shoot that signals spring.
Awakenings of all kinds, these beginnings,
Like a newborn’s joyful snatch at breath.Endings can also be kind: A lull in the rain,
Sunset drawing day to a close,
The scatter-art of autumn leaves.
Sleepings of all kinds, these endings,
Like a man’s last troubled snatch at breath.We make so much of our beginnings and endings,
Clinging to wakefulness, dreading our sleeping,
Blind to the beauty of cycles as
Rain gives way to sunshine, day to night,
Spring to autumn, our first breath to our last.Our ending too can be kind, it is not so hard,
Without endings there can be no beginnings.
This poem wonderfully conveys the idea of death being a new beginning. Had tried to make some attempts myself(Poetry) in this regard, but this one has the magic in it.
lovely poem. I used it in a unitarian church school class of pre-K to 1st graders along with the buddhist story, The Mountains of Tibet to teach beginnings and endings. Thank you!
Love this one too. Just shared it with my girls.