The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

~ Mary Oliver

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you


here is the deepest secret nobody knows


(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart


i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)




~ e.e.cummings

.

escape from these two worlds.

There is no salvation for the soul 

But to fall in Love.

It has to creep and crawl 

Among the Lovers first.

Only Lovers can escape 

From these two worlds. 

This was written in creation.

Only from the Heart 

Can you reach the sky. 

The rose of Glory 

Can only be raised in the Heart.

~ Rumi

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

shut by our mingling arms through

a darkness where new lights begin and 

increase,

since your mind has walked into

my kiss as a stranger

into the streets and colours of a town-

that i have perhaps forgotten

how,always(from

these hurrying crudities

of blood and flesh)Love

coins His most gradual gesture,

and whittles life to eternity

-after which our separating selves become museums

filled with skilfully stuffed memories

~ e.e.cummings

.

e.e.cummings-charcoal sketch

Just keep going

Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I just believe in me...Yoko and me

...

I don't believe in magic

I don't believe in I-Ching

I don't believe in Bible

I don't believe in Tarot

I don't believe in Hitler

I don't believe in Jesus

I don't believe in Kennedy

I don't believe in Buddha

I don't believe in Mantra

I don't believe in Gita

I don't believe in Yoga

I don't believe in Kings

I don't believe in Elvis

I don't believe in Zimmerman

I don't believe in Beatles

I just believe in me

...

Yoko and me ...

...

~ John Lennon

 

.

It is the mind

If nothing will serve a man but rich clothes and furniture, statues and plate, a numerous train of servants, and the rarities of all nations, it is not Fortunes's fault, but his own, that he is not satisfied; for his desires are insatiable, and this is not a thirst, but a disease; and if he were master of the whole world, he would be still a beggar. It is the mind that makes us rich and happy, in what condition soever we are; and money signifies no more to it than it does to the gods.

~ Seneca

...

Late evening finally

comes: I unlatch the door

and quietly

await the one

who greets me in my dreams.

...

~Otomo No Yakamochi


.

guardian angel

I am the bird that knocks at your window in the morning
and your companion, whom you cannot know,
the blossoms that light up for the blind.

I am the glacier’s crest above the forests, the dazzling one
and the brass voices from cathedral towers.
The thought that suddenly comes over you at midday
and fills you with a singular happiness.

I am one you have loved long ago.
I walk alongside you by day and look intently at you
and put my mouth on your heart
but you don’t know it.

I am your third arm and your second
shadow, the white one,
whom you don’t have the heart for
and who cannot ever forget you.




~ Rolf Jacobsen

Brute force crushes many plants

...
Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup.


...
~ DH Lawrence
 
.

In dreams I walk with you

A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night

Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper

'Go to sleep, everything is all right'

I close my eyes, then I drift away

Into the magic night. I softly say

A silent prayer, like dreamers do

Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you.

In dreams I walk with you, in dreams I talk to you
In dreams you're mine all of the time, we're together
In dreams, in dreams ...



~ Roy Orbison

catcher in the rye

"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like—"

"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said.

 "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."

"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."

She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye."

 I didn't know it then, though.

"I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said.

 "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game 

in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around—

 nobody big, I mean— except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.

 What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—

 I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going

 I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. 

That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye 

and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing

 I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy." 

~ JD Salinger

.

 

 

... or you must not reason at all

...
When she had said goodbye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say goodbye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears -- oh, how unhappy we were! -- I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realised how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

...

~ Anton Chekhov

.

I used to be shy

...

I used to be shy.

You made me sing.

...

I used to refuse things at table.

Now I shout for more wine.

...

In somber dignity, I used to sit

on my mat and pray.

...

Now children run through

and make faces at me.

...

~ Rumi

.