"A Tear And A Smile"
I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart for the joys of the multitude. And I would not have the tears that sadness makes to flow from my every part turn into laughter. I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding of life's secrets and hidden things. A smile to draw me nigh to the sons of my kind and to be a symbol of my glorification of the gods.
A tear to unite me with those of broken heart; a smile to be a sign of my joy in existence.
I would rather that I died in yearning and longing than that I lived weary and despairing. I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the depths of my spirit, for I have seen those who are satisfied the most wretched of people. I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and longing, and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody.
With evening's coming the flower folds her petals and sleeps, embracing her longing. At morning's approach she opens her lips to meet the sun's kiss.
The life of a flower is longing and fulfillment. A tear and a smile.
The waters of the sea become vapor and rise and come together and are a cloud. And the cloud floats above the hills and valleys until it meets the gentle breeze, then falls weeping to the fields and joins with the brooks and rivers to return to the sea, its home.
The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting. A tear and a smile.
And so does the spirit become separated from the greater spirit to move in the world of matter and pass as a cloud over the mountain of sorrow and the plains of joy to meet the breeze of death and return whence it came.
To the oceans of Love and Beauty–to God.
4 comments:
Beth, not too get all overly personal here in my comment, but I did have a fitful from worrying night of sleep and when I woke to read this poem - oh, it felt like a hug from you. These lines:
I would rather that I died in yearning and longing than that I lived weary and despairing. I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the depths of my spirit, for I have seen those who are satisfied the most wretched of people. I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and longing, and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody.
wow.
Thank you!
beautiful poem Beth...
thanks for sharing it.
~Michelle
Beth,
Like Molly, I was especially struck by those lines about how it is better to die yearning and longing than to live weary and despairing. But the whole poem is just so beautiful, all the way through. I love that idea of life as a tear and a smile. God holds our tears--he saves them in a bottle. They are as precious as our smiles.
I love this poem! And I love it all the more because it gives me an opportunity to quote my favorite verse in the Bible, something I don't have as many opportunities as I'd like to do. "A tear and a smile" remind me much of the mingling of the shouts of joy with the weeping in these verses from Ezra (3:11b-13)
"And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away."
I love that the sadness and the joy mingle and make some new thing...
lovely poem!
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