Panorama

We are very proud to announce that the April 2004 edition of Panorama is now published – a selection of 56 poems from an edition that was published during the American National Poetry Month of that year. Here is a poem from this latest edition which highlights one of the greatest poets in American literature, Emily Dickinson.

[Emily Dickinson's] unique, gemlike lyrics are distillations of profound feeling and original intellect, and they stand outside the mainstream of American literary tradition. – PoetSeers.org

Ode to Emily Dickinson

Oh to be like Emily –
Retreat from the world
Into the second floor of self,
Sending messages by a tether,
The thinnest possible line of contact,
Invisible, withdrawn into silence,
Close by the fragrant core of being,
The place of knowing,
The emptiness that can pour abundance
Onto the blank page.
Oh to read
Her luminous strings of words,
Like dew-dropped webs
Delicately stretched
Across the morning sun –
To see in them
The nearly forgotten
Rainbowed-reflections
Of our own sequestered selves!

– Atmatyagi Kutt.

——-

Drawn from the April 2004 edition of Panorama.

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Golden One

My Guru sits engulfed
in warm golden light –
the curtains, the yellow blanket
covering his chair, his jacket –
all this night are golden.
He has taken a chill, and sneezed.
To warm up, he has tugged on
a white hat (looking like a chick
emerging from its egg),
and golden gloves,
leaving his arms uncovered.

He emanates golden Light
from the heart of the Golden Boat.
All, all is full of the supernal Light
of this precious moment on earth –
where even the prasad is a golden orb.
The oneness-affection-height
of this Thanksgiving night
is all pervading.

– Hashi Roberts.
——-

Drawn from the April 2007 edition of Panorama.

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An Unwise Transaction

Pleasure gives me satisfaction
I cannot tell a lie
Happiness gives me infinitely more satisfaction
Truth, Absolute Truth
It seems in order to buy pleasure I
Must spend happiness.
Therefore I have decided it is an
Unwise transaction.

– Jitavrata Jacobs.
——-

Drawn from the April 2006 edition of Panorama.

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Such beauty in these poetic verses from Lord Byron…

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

——-

There is music in the sighing of a reed;
There’s music in the gushing of a rill;
There’s music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.

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We are very happy that Panorama has reached the halfway point in it’s evolution as a website. There have been fourteen editions of Panorama produced since 1999 and selections from seven of these are now published on this site.

We look forward to bringing you more poems from the minds, hearts and lives of Sri Chinmoy’s students and invite you to explore Panorama for poetry that offers you some joy or insight, or simply a moment of reflection. “Poetry,” Kahlil Gibran once said, “is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.” Yet, it is more. Poetry can be the revelation of the hidden divine that secrets itself behind the mask of everyday human events. For, like music, poetry offers us an opportunity to express deeper ideas and feelings that usher forth from that misty region between silence and speech.

“He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.” – George Sand.

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Most people who choose to express themselves through poetry and prose have stumbled into the dark pits of writers block from time to time – that dreaded state where mind and paper remain perfectly blank. And it’s not just the territory of the amateur scribe either. History teaches us that even the likes of William Shakespeare suffered esprit en blanc occasionally – it’s a condition that has brought many great writers to the soup kitchens of the world!

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The Evening Star

A vast expanse
Higher and still higher
Beyond the reaches
Of limitation and thought
The deepening sky
Arches everlastingly.

From its midst an evening star
Shines with the ancient burning light
Of a million yearning eyes.
Piercing the stillness of space,
She watches eternally.

Mountains stand regal below
Peaks climbing skyward
Steeply they rise
To encircle the night.
Like chords they reverberate
Infinity’s Peace.

Tears flood my eyes
As in silence I stand
Regarding this night.
Breathless I cry,
How long will it be? How far is my goal?
The evening star smiles at me
Immortality’s Love.

– Amelia Lloyd.

——-

Drawn from the August 2004 edition of Panorama.

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