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Happy national poetry month!

April is poetry month, and I never knew this great info till this year!

For a change, I picked a short stories book written by one of the famous poets and who I enjoyed reading his letter very much and intended to know more of his work this year... the one and only, Rilke.

“I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices can do.”

“Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.”

“Harry is not made up of two characters, but of hundreds of thousands. His life, like that of every human being, does not oscillate between two poles only - say between the body and the mind or spirit, between the saint and the profligate - but between thousands, between innumerable polar opposites.”

“The basic image of a good work of art is not a real, living figure, although it may inspire it. The basic image is not flesh and blood; it is mind. It is an image that has its home in the artist’s soul.”

“Art was a union of the father and mother worlds, of mind and blood ... Any work of art that was truly sublime, not just a good juggler’s trick; that was filled with the eternal secret; every obviously genuine work of art had this dangerous, smiling double face, was male-female, a merging of instinct and pure spirituality.”

~

This book is incredible; it is beyond words.

I wanted to stay awake till suhoor today and skip sleeping, and I am so glad that I decided to do it by reading a Hesse book. And yes, I will regret the not sleeping part during the suhoor 😂

I have a thought, about what Narcissus & Goldmund are really about, and what they are supposed to represent; I hope I am right, and if what I think is right, it will be awesome!

I am super excited to read Hesse again.

One could open a book to any page, or look at a person's hand; one could turn a card, or watch the flight of birds ... whatever the thing observed, one could find a connection with his experience of the moment. Actually, it wasn't that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World.

“Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”

“As much as people say, “You do not have to do this alone,” know that there are some things you must do alone—like find each part of you that no one has known how to love, hold it as it cries, and love it anyway.”

~~

I have to say that I love, completely love, each illustration. Stunning!

“When I say Feel the grief in full,
I mean, let it break your heart.

How else will it learn
to soften you to the wounds of others?

Besides, she asks,
how do you think
the ache finally leaves?”

Did I honestly think I will end the month without reading a poetry book?

No I didn't, never such a thought occurred to my head lol 😂

After a very long and very tiring day, it is finally time to rest with a book I am very excited to read.

This month's poetry pick goes to Nikita Gill. Another incredible poet that I got introduced to through Twitter so many years ago.

“I’ve never played an instrument in my life, but I understand something of music. To have played the opening measures of that piece with feelings so perfectly evocative of heartache, one can only assume that you have drawn on some wellspring of sorrow within yourself.”

“Silence can be a form of protest. It can be a means of survival. But it can also be a school of poetry—one with its own meter, tropes, and conventions. One that needn’t be written with pencils or pens; but that can be written in the soul with a revolver to the chest.”

I am absolutely enjoying every bit of this book, losing every sense of myself and time with it, not because of the plot, characters, or setting, but because of the genius writing I am witnessing.

Every word of Amor’s is like honey; so thick, rich, and sweet, and I love what my mind is absorbing and witnessing.

Brilliant.

“Adversity presents itself in many forms; if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.”

“We don’t have to fall into the same category to be of equal value.”

This is the first time I witness a gender-neutral representation in a book; using “they/them” pronouns to refer to the main character.

I truly love this representation, especially since the main character is a monk 👏🏽

Also every time there is a mention of tea, I crave tea. I can't read this book at night I will surrender to my addiction to tea lol 😂

“Welcome every guest,
No matter how grotesque.
Be as hospitable to calamity as to ecstasy,
To anxiety as to tranquility.
Today’s misery sweeps your home clean,
Making way for tomorrow’s felicity” — Rumi

~

A great reminder from Rumi, but it is also can be very hard to apply.

“When we focus on our love and empathy for the oppressed—instead of our anger and enmity for the oppressor—we liberate ourselves from the pitfalls of ego and outrage. And in doing so, we pave the way for an enduring, inclusive, and accessible path toward justice.”

“I have spoken the language of madness, full of whys and hows and wherefores. Obsessed with reasons, I spent a lifetime knocking at this door. When at last it opened, my soul replied. All along, I had been knocking from the inside.” — Rumi

~

I am completely in love with this book. I don’t know how I found it, but every part of my being is glad that I did.

“Better to be of the same heart than of the same tongue.” — Rumi

~

Day 4618284 of ruining my sleeping schedule because of a book.

I just started this book and I am already deeply moved by it. I feel her words; every word of hers speaks volumes.

I hope it keeps up that way.

“Why should you want to exclude from your life all unsettling, all pain, all depression of spirit, when you don’t know what work it is these states are performing within you?”

~

Did I just ignore my headache and missed my bedtime to finish the letters? Yes, I did. Will I regret it in the morning? Yes, I will. Am I happy that I ignored my sleep to read such an incredible book? Yes, I am!

“reshape it into a relation between two human beings and no longer between man and woman. And this more human form of love will resemble the one we are struggling and toiling to prepare the way for, the love that consists in two solitudes protecting, defining and welcoming one another.”

He saw love the way I see it. Not as completeness, but as two whole beings uniting together.

This book is beyond incredible!

“For he who creates must be a world of his own and find everything within himself and in the natural world that he has elected to follow.”

I still have till midnight before I finally get my freedom back, meaning, starting from tomorrow I can choose to stay at home willingly, not because of a virus and a quarantine 😂

Since I have time, and finally got a little bit of my focus back, I decided to lift my mood today by starting a book that I am willing to read for a while. Pretty excited!

Side note: the sun & the air are extremely beautiful today!

“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”

No one:

Me talking to covid inside my body: do you like reading this? Poetry is incredible, isn’t it? I know I know.

Let me educate the virus before it leaves my body, I will try to be a good host 😂

“Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.” — Incredible. Love this!

The poetry book of this month goes to Mary Oliver.

And yup, I took the habit of reading a poetry book a month with me this year too!

I truly love poetry. And oh God, while reading this one I realized how much I missed reading a long collection of poetry—long poetry books.