Poems can be a doorway into another world. Each one, a simple arrangement of otherwise ordinary words, that together evoke presence, wonder, possibility. So here is an invitation to pause, let the words wash over you and glimpse the world they offer you…
It’s a growing collection, and we’d love to hear which ones resonate with you and why, and find out about your favourites. Here is an index of our Words of Wonder.
Stop whatever it is you’re doing.Come down from the attic.Grab a bucket or a basket and head for light.That’s where the best poems grow, and in the dappled dark. Go slow. Watch out for thorns and bears.When you find a good bush, bowto it, or take off your shoes. Pluck. This poem. That poem. Any…
(at St. Mary’s) may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your…
the way even the late-blooming aster succumbs to the power of frost— this is not a new story. Still, on this morning, the hollowness of the season startles, filling the rooms of your house, filling the world with impossible light, improbable hope. And so, what else can you do but let yourself be broken and…
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for…
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice – – – though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. ‘Mend my life!’ each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you…
Be thankful now for having arrived, for the sense of having drunk from a well, for remembering the long drought that preceded your arrival and the years walking in a desert landscape of surfaces looking for a spring hidden from you so long that even wanting to find it now had gone from your mind…
I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realise now that I must give all that I have to possess it. Life is not…
Now I understand that there are two melodies playing, one below the other, one easier to hear, the other lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard yet always present. When all other things seem lively and real, this one fades. Yet the notes of it touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound…
(after Wallace Stevens) The fortune that you seek is in another cookie, was my fortune. So I’ll be equally frank—the wisdom that you covet is in another poem. The life that you desire is in a different universe. The cookie you are craving is in another jar. The jar is buried somewhere in Tennessee. Don’t…