not yet discouraged

By plucking her petals, you do not

gather the beauty of the flower.

Clouds come floating into my life,

no longer to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add colour to my sunset sky.

Death is not extinguishing the light;

it is only putting out the lamp

because the dawn has come.

Do not say, ‘It is morning,’

and dismiss it with a name of yesterday.

See it for the first time

as a newborn child that has no name.

Don’t limit a child to your own learning,

for he was born in another time.

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil

is no freedom for the tree.

Every child comes with the message

that God is not yet discouraged of man.

Every difficulty slurred over

will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.

Everything comes to us that belongs to us

if we create the capacity to receive it.

Faith is the bird that feels the light

when the dawn is still dark.

From the solemn gloom of the temple

children run out to sit in the dust,

God watches them play and forgets the priest.

I have become my own version of an optimist.

If I can’t make it through one door,

I’ll go through another door - or I’ll make a door.

Something terrific will come

no matter how dark the present.

~ Rabindranath Tagore