Women in Praise of the Sacred Book

A combination of spiritual poetry and history of the poets. Really expansive, beautiful, informative collection.

My favorites were:

p 21, Zi Ye
All night I could not sleep / because of the moonlight on my bed. / I kept on hearing a voice calling: / Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered "yes."

p 31, Gnostic Gospel - Nag Hammadi Library
I am the incomprehensible silence / and the memory that will not be forgotten. / I am the voice whose sound is everywhere / and the speech that appears in many forms. / I am the utterance of my own name.

(...) I am the one you have scattered, / and you have gathered me together.

p 58, Izumi Shikibu
I cannot say / which is which: / the glowing / plum blossom is / the spring night's moon.

p 97, Marguerite Porete (? - 1310) (I want to see if I can find more about her; the biography glimpse caught my interest. Wrote Mirror of Simple Souls.)

p 100, Hadewijch Antwerp
In the beginning Love satisfies us. / When Love first spoke to me of love - / How I laughed at her in return! / But then she made me like the hazel trees, / Which blossom early in the season of darkness, / And bear fruit slowly.

p 106, Hadewijch II
All things / are too small / to hold me, / I am so vast

p 133, Mirabai
Love has stained my body / to the color of the One Who Holds Up Mountains.

p 143, Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) (Want to see if I can find more about her too. Though deemed a saint, she was also known for her humanness and sense of humor.)

p 158, Sor Huana Ines de la Cruz
Since today the Child / leaves heaven for earth / and finds nowhere to rest / his head in this world, / who will come to his aid? / Water! / Fire! / Air! / No, but Earth will!

p 169, Bibi Hayati
Is this scorching a lightning bolt's remnants, or the burning / mountain? / The heat of my sighs, or your inner body?

p 172, Emily Dickinson
Who has not found the Heaven - below - / Will fail of it above - / For Angels rent the House next ours, / Wherever we remove -

p 181, Wild Nights - Wild Nights! / Were I with thee / Wild Nights should be / Our luxury!

p, 192, Christina Georgina Rossetti
Tread softly! all earth is holy ground.

p 198, Osage Woman's Initiation Song
I have made a footprint, a sacred one. / I have made a footprint, through it the blades push upward. / (...) I have made a footprint, I live in the light of day.

p 209, Anna Akhmatova
Sunset in the ethereal waves: / I cannot tell if the day / is ending, or the world, or if / the secret of secrets is inside me again.

p 213, Gabriela Mistral
Scatter it in a song, / or in one great love's desire.

p 226, Edith Sodergran
On foot / I had to walk through the solar systems, / before I found the first thread of my red dress. / Already, I sense myself. / Somewhere in space hangs my heart, / sparks fly from it, shaking the air, / to other reckless hearts.

p 230, Now I shall drink wisdom from the spruce's sap-filled crowns, / now I shall drink truth from the withered trunks of the birches, / now I shall drink power from the smallest and tenderest grasses: / a mighty protector mercifully reaches me his hand.

p 232, Marina Tsvetaeva
The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew, / the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet. / And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we / who never let each other sleep above it.