we phantom figures

46

For in and out, above, about, below,

'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,

Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,

Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

47

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in - Yes -
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be - Nothing - Thou shalt not be less.

49

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and Thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

51

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

52

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help - for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

2

Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

7

Come , fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
 The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly - and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

20

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears -
To-morrow? - Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

32

There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed - and then no more of Thee and Me.

55

The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about
If clings my Being - let the Sufi flout;
Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without

56

And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrathconsume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.

~ Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

First Edition, 1859

translation into English quatrains by Edward FitzGerald 

people like us

There are more like us. All over the world

There are confused people, who can't remember

The name of their dog when they wake up, and people

Who love God but can't remember where

He was when they went to sleep. It's

All right. The world cleanses itself this way.

A wrong number occurs to you in the middle

Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house. And the second-story man

Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,

And he's lonely, and they talk, and the thief

Goes back to college. Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom,

And hear great poems lovingly spoken 

By the wrong professor. And you find your soul,

And greatness has a defender, and even in death you're safe.

~ Robert Bly

from Morning Poems

.

Our hearts irrigate this earth

.

How is it they live for eons in such harmony -

the billions of stars -

when most men can barely go a minute

without declaring war in their mind against someone they know.

There are wars where no one marches with a flag,

though that does not keep casualties

from mounting.

Our hearts irrigate this earth.

We are fields before

each other.

How can we live in harmony?

First we need to

know

we are all madly in love

with the same

God.

~ St. Thomas Aquinas

(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West 

by Daniel Ladinsky)

a somebody?

About a decade after he made his oft-quoted proclamation in Leaves of Grass — 

“Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, 

/ (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

 

 — Whitman considers the cohesion of those multitudes:

There is, in sanest hours, a consciousness, a thought that rises, 

independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal.

 

This is the thought of identity — yours for you, whoever you are, 

as mine for me. Miracle of miracles, beyond statement, most spiritual

 and vaguest of earth’s dreams, yet hardest basic fact,

 and only entrance to all facts. 

 

In such devout hours,

 in the midst of the significant wonders of heaven and earth, 

(significant only because of the Me in the centre,)

 creeds, conventions, fall away and become of no account 

before this simple idea. Under the luminousness of real vision,

 it alone takes possession, takes value. Like the shadowy dwarf in the fable,

 once liberated and look’d upon, it expands over the whole earth,

 and spreads to the roof of heaven.

~ Walt Whitman

 from the essay Democratic Vistas
Illustration by Mimmo Paladino for a rare edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses

with thanks to Brain Pickings

looking for the face

~ Robert Lax

with thanks to louie, louie