A poem should not mean but be.
Archibald MacleishRead
There is no dusk to be, There is no dawn that was, Only there's now, and now, And the wind in the grass.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment, recognizing that the past and future are unattainable.
Archibald Macleish's quote suggests that our focus should be on the present, as the past has already occurred and the future is uncertain. By highlighting the simplicity and beauty of 'now' and the natural elements around us, such as 'the wind in the grass,' it encourages a mindfulness that allows us to fully experience life as it unfolds.
In practice
During a mindfulness workshop, you could share this quote to emphasize the importance of being present.
A poem should not mean but be.
To see the earth as we now see it, small and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night ~ brothers who see now they are truly brothers.
Journalism is concerned with events, poetry with feelings. Journalism is concerned with the look of the world, poetry with the feel of the world.
How shall freedom be defended? By arms when it is attacked by arms, by truth when it is attacked by lies, by faith when it is attacked by authoritarian dogma. Always, in the final act, by determination and faith.
Races didn't bother the Americans. They were something a lot better than any race. They were a People. They were the first self-constituted, self-declared, self-created People in the history of the world.
The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.
How could I bear a crown of gold when the Lord bears a crown of thorns? And bears it for me!
Indeed, there is nothing more arbitrary than intervening as a stranger in a destiny which is not ours.
The wounds were burning like suns at five in the afternoon, and the crowd broke the windows At five in the afternoon. Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! It was five by all the clocks! It was five in the shade of the afternoon!
Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.
The reader of these Memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed aim before my eyes, and that my system, if it can be called a system, has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life, trusting to the wind wherever it led.
By what aberration has suicide, the only truly normal action, become the attribute of the flawed?
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