If you use your mind

.

If you use your mind to study reality,

you won't understand either your mind or reality.

If you study reality without using your mind,

you'll understand both.

.

~ Bodhidharma

 

if i have made,my lady,intricate

if i have made,my lady,intricate

imperfect various things chiefly which wrong 

your eyes(frailer than most deep dreams are frail) 

songs less firm than your body's whitest song 

upon my mind-if i have failed to snare 

the glance too shy-if through my singing slips 

the very skillful strangeness of your smile 

the keen primeval silence of your hair 

-let the world say "his most wise music stole 

nothing from death"- 

you only will create 

(who are so perfectly alive)my shame: 

lady through whose profound and fragile lips 

the sweet small clumsy feet of April came 

into the ragged meadow of my soul. 

~ e.e.cummings

I am much too alone in this world

... 

...

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough to truly consecrate the hour. I am much too small in this world, yet not small enough to be to you just object and thing, dark and smart. I want my free will and want it accompanying the path which leads to action; and want during times that beg questions, where something is up, to be among those in the know, or else be alone. I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection, never be blind or too old to uphold your weighty wavering reflection. I want to unfold. Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent; for there I would be dishonest, untrue. I want my conscience to be true before you; want to describe myself like a picture I observed for a long time, one close up, like a new word I learned and embraced, like the everyday jug, like my mother's face, like a ship that carried me along through the deadliest storm.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

.

up into the silence the green

up into the silence the green

silence with a white earth in it

you will(kiss me)go

out into the morning the young

morning with a warm world in it

(kiss me)you will go

on into the sunlight the fine

sunlight with a firm day in it

you will go(kiss me

down into your memory and

a memory and memory

i)kiss me,(will go)

~ e.e.cummings 

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle

.

... 

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass - the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
...
~ Walt Whitman
.

I love you. ... he could not resist reading it once again

...

He rolled up the completed bundle of work and slid it into the pneumatic tube. Eight minutes had gone by. He re-adjusted his spectacles on his nose, sighed, and drew the next batch of work towards him, with the scrap of paper on top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a large unformed handwriting:

...

I love you.
...

For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating thing into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well the danger of showing too much interest, he could not resist reading it once again, just to make sure that the words were really there.
...

~ George Orwell, from 1984

It's up in the morning and on the downs

.

It's up in the morning and on the downs

Little white clouds like gambolling lambs

And I am breathless over you

And the red-breasted robin beats his wings

His throat it trembles when he sings

For he is helpless before you

The happy hooded bluebells bow

And bend their heads all a-down

Heavied by the early morning dew

At the whispering stream, at the bubbling brook

The fishes leap up to take a look

For they are breathless over you

Still your hands

And still your heart

Still your face comes shining through

And all the morning glows anew

Still your mind

Still your soul

For still, the fare of love is true

And I am breathless without you

The wind circles among the trees

And it bangs about the new-made leaves

For it is breathless without you

The fox chases the rabbit round

The rabbit hides beneath the ground

For he is defenseless without you

The sky of daytime dies away

And all the earthly things they stop to play

For we are all breathless without you

I listen to my juddering bones

The blood in my veins and the wind in my lungs

And I am breathless without you

Still your hands

And still your heart

For still your face comes shining through

And all the morning glows anew

Still your soul

Still your mind

Still, the fire of love is true

And I am breathless without you

~  Nick Cave

.

 
        .

.

...

~  love is never wasted.

...

~ Cervantes

.

But pleasures are like poppies spread

.

...

But pleasures are like poppies spread:

You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;

Or like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white then melts for ever ...

...

~ Robert Burns

.

They can be like a sun, words

.

...

...
They can be like a sun, words

They can do for the heart

what light can

for a field.

...

~ St. John of the Cross

.

Tender words we spoke

Tender words we spoke

to one another

are sealed

in the secret vaults of heaven.

. 

One day like rain,

they will fall to earth

and grow green

all over the world.
 .

~ Rumi
.

My love she speaks like silence

...

My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence

She doesn't have to say she's faithful

Yet she's true like ice, like fire

People carry roses, make promises by the hour

My love she laughs like the flowers

Valentines can't buy her

...

In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all
...
The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge
...
The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers' nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night wind blows cold n' rainy
My love she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing

...
 ~ Bob Dylan 

from 'Bringing It All Back Home' [1965]


.

.

yes is a pleasant country

...

yes is a pleasant country:

if's wintery

(my lovely)

let's open the year

both is the very weather

(not either)

my treasure,

when violets appear

love is a deeper season

than reason;

my sweet one

(and april's where we're)

.

e.e.cummings

...

not even rain

           

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will enclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain,has such small hands

~ e.e.cummings

The Viking ship sails into the full harbor.

.

...

The Viking ship sails into the full harbor.

The body meets its wife far out at sea.

Its lamp remains lit the whole moisty night.

Water pours down, faint flute notes in the sound

of the water.

...

~ Robert Bly