Poetry and the Soul

Posted by Linda Sue Grimes Mar 11, 2007

Poet Seers has collected a wealth of poetry from all over the world from different spiritual traditions; about the poets, they explain, “Through a diversity of paths and language they remind us we are in essence one world family all journeying back to our common source.” For the spiritual devotee, these poems are more than mere entertainment; they serve as a guide to direct the devotee’s mind God-ward.

The site offers a daily poem; today’s contribution is from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence titled “Eternity”:

• He who binds to himself a joy
• Does the winged life destroy.
• But he who kisses the joy as it flies
• Lives in eternity's sunrise.

Blake’s excerpt reminds us that the spiritually seeking soul must strive to achieve an attitude of nonattachment. Thus, grasping joy and jealously trying to keep it has the opposite affect: instead of retaining it, one loses it. To retain joy and contentedness, the devotee much practice nonattachment.

The site includes poems from ancient sources such as The Gospels of the New Testament, the Indian Kalidasa, the Chinese Li Po, and many other ancient texts from the very early centuries.

Also the American poets Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, and contemporaries, Mary Oliver and Maya Angelou, are represented. Poems are arranged by theme, country, date, and even literary movements such as the Romantics.

There is a link to “Spirit Blog” at Write Spirit, where Richard Pettinger posts spiritual poems and commentaries.