Quotes from "Stray Birds" which I read today:
God grows weary of great kingdoms, but never of little flowers.
The woodcutter's axe begged for its handle from the tree. The tree gave it.
"I give my whole water in joy," sings the waterfall, "though little of it is enough for the thirsty."
If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.
Listen, my heart, to the whispers of the world with which it makes love to you.
What you are you do not see, what you see is your shadow.
I cannot choose the best. The best chooses me.
The leaf becomes flower when it loves.
The flower becomes fruit when it worships.
By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
"I have lost my dewdrop," cries the flower to the morning sky that has lost all its stars.
"How may I sing to thee and worship, O Sun?" asked the little flower.
"By the simple silence of thy purity," answered the sun.
From "Stray Birds"
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/tagore/strybrds.htm
Here is a poem that the name of this collection inspired:
Stray Birds (first revision)
There are stray dogs and cats
But birds are never stray
They flit and they soar,
Belonging not to streets but to sky,
Their songs a whisper of freedom,
In the morning light, they don't ask for more.
While a stranded dog digs holes,
And the cat watches the world through a window,
The bird knows no fences, no leashes,
Only the wind beneath its wings
And the call of distant trees,
Where branches bend like friendly arms.
I wonder if we are like dogs and cats,
Leashed to our little corners of the world,
Or if somewhere within,
There’s a bird waiting to be freed,
To rise above the noise of daily life,
And find the open sky,
Where nothing holds us back,
And the only direction is up.
Singing oneness!
