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.
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…
The good news they do not print. The good news we do print. We have a special edition every moment, and we need you to read it. The good news is that you are alive, that the linden tree is still there, standing firm in the harsh winter. The good news is that you have…
Go gently today, don’t hurry or think about the next thing. Walk with the quiet trees, can you believe how brave they are—how kind? Model your life after theirs. Blow kisses at yourself in the mirror especially when you think you’ve messed up. Forgive yourself for not meeting your unreasonable expectations. You are human, not…
Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in veils of cloud, sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in veils of inattention, apathy, fatique, when I forget or refuse to go down to the shore or a few yards up the road, on a clear day, to reconfirm that witnessing presence. by Denise Levertov …