A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
I mean, there was a serious international effort to say to Saddam Hussein: 'You're a threat'. And the 9/11 attacks accentuated that threat, as far as I'm concerned.
Courage is required to make an initial thrust towards ones coveted goal, But even greater courage is called for when one stumbles and must make a second effort to achieve.
But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.
In the mouth of Society are many diseased teeth, decayed to the bones of the jaws. But Society makes no effort to have them extracted and be rid of the affliction. It contents itself with gold fillings.
On occasion we need to make a second effort - and a third effort, and a fourth effort, and as many degrees of effort as may be required to accomplish what we strive to achieve.
Once you discover that you can, then you must. And it's not easy. You have to take direct steps. You really have to count your blessings and you have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the blues.
It is astonishing, how many difficulties clear up without any effort when the inner life gets straightened out. If half the time we spend trying to fix up outward things were spent in getting our hearts right, we would be delighted with the result. Strange as it may seem, harmony within our hearts depends mostly upon our getting into harmony with God.
She looked at him, and oh, the weariness to her, of the effort to understand another language, the weariness of hearing him, attending to him, making out who he was, as he stood there fair-bearded and alien, looking at her. She knew something of him, of his eyes. But she could not grasp him. She closed her eyes.