"Dearest, I beg of you, sleep properly and go for walks." ~ Franz Kafka

Poems for Lent (Day 32) 'Poem of the One World' • Mary Oliver •

Gently read... • Jane Taylor •

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." ~ Kahlil Gibran Blossom of Pain (1898) 🎨 Edvard Munch

A poem I wrote a few years back. 𝐍.𝐁. It's not based on anyone I know, and the suicide alluded to in it was not, in the truest sense, a real event.

"The only basis for living is believing in life, loving it, and applying the whole force of one's intellect to know it better." ~ Emile Zola Lane of Cherry Blossom 🎨 Ingeborg Eggertz

Poems for Lent (Day 31) • Wiliam Cowper •

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." ~ G.K. Chesterton The Rainbow (1892) 🎨 Nikolay Dubovskoy

Poems for Lent (Day 30) • Rudyard Kipling •

"Beauty is not all brightness. In the shadowlands of pain and despair we find slow, dark beauty. The primeval conversation between darkness and beauty is not audible to the human ear, and the threshold where they engage each other is not visible to the eye." ~ John O'Donohue

"Let us ... repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life." ~ Virginia Woolf Open Window at Collioure 🎨 Henri Matisse (1905)

Just J.R.R. Tolkien casually coming up with an answer for the ages...

"Do not divert your love from visible things. But go on loving what is good, simple, and ordinary: animals and things and flowers, and keep the balance true." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Poems for Lent (Day 29) • Kenneth Steven •

It's so real...

"Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish. The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith." ~ Hilaire Belloc Christ in the Wilderness (1872) 🎨 Ivan Kramskoi

Poems for Lent (5th Sunday) • Mary Oliver •

"And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed Of mosses and flowers To pillow thy head." ~ John Keats Dream (1905) 🎨 Joan Brull i Vinyoles

A poem that never fails to make my soul ache. • James Wright •

Incredibly, we've had 3 days in a row of glorious sunshine here in Ireland!! ☀️

"It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment." ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez A Spring Landscape with Violets 🎨 Stanislav Zhukovsky (1935)

Poems for Lent (Day 28)

Tarry here a while, and read...

Poems for Lent (Day 27) • Kenneth Steven •

An amazing poem. • Paul Durcan •

"Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable: they happen in a space that no word has ever entered." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Poems for Lent (Day 26) • Derek Mahon •

"We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it." ~ C.S. Lewis

• Lisel Mueller •

"It is unfortunate that we try to solve the simplest questions cleverly, and therefore make them unusually complicated. We should seek a simple solution." ~ Anton Chekhov Anemones • Spring Morning (1901) 🎨 Peder Mørk Mønsted

Take flight... • Henry David Thoreau •

Poems for Lent (Day 25) • John Clare •

Poems for Lent (Day 24) #StPatricksDay2026 • John Fitzgerald •

Happy St. Patrick's Day ☘️ (The Ireland that was is forever in my heart.)

Stop for a moment, and read... • Mary Oliver •

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet." ~ Emily Dickinson Songbird on Blossom Branch 🎨 Ohara Koson

Poems for Lent (Day 23) • Gerard Manley Hopkins •

Some beautiful words from Washington Irving for this year's Mother's Day 💐

Poems for Lent (4th Sunday) #MothersDay2026 R.S. Thomas

A word to eternally treasure...

Poems for Lent (Day 22) • David Whyte •

... and yet again, my Mum has baked me the most unbelievable birthday cake 🎂 Beyond grateful for days like these. (Everyone can have a slice! 😄)

Poems for Lent (Day 21) • Mary Oliver •

"We breathe love as we breathe air; we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us." ~ Guy de Maupassant The Park Monceau (1878) 🎨 Gustave Caillebotte

Stupendous 😄🥤

Spring Day at Durdle Door - by Dorset artist, Gina Marshall More of this artist's wok, here: www.ginamagnoliaart.com

"Nature doesn't ask your permission; it doesn't care about your wishes, or whether you like its laws or not. You're obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky Étretat in the Rain (1886) 🎨 Claude Monet

Poems for Lent (Day 20) • Edgar Albert Guest •

Goethe, always with great advice.

☀️ Geometric Morning Radiance Did Catch Me Unaware; Its Beauty made my Blood Dance Above my Earthly Care.