Thoreau's Journal

...

The obstacles which the heart meets with are like granite blocks which one alone cannot move. She who was as the morning light to me is now neither the morning star nor the evening star. We meet but to find each other further asunder, and the oftener we meet the more rapid our divergence. So a star of the first magnitude pales in the heavens, not from any fault in the observer’s eye nor from any fault in itself, perchance, but because its progress in its own system has put a greater distance between.

...

~ Henry David Thoreau

magic words

In the very earliest time,

when both people and animals lived on earth,

a person could become an animal if he wanted to

and an animal could become a human being.

Sometimes they were people

and sometimes animals

and there was no difference.

All spoke the same language.

That was the time when words were like magic.

The human mind had mysterious powers.

A word spoken by chance

might have strange consequences.

It would suddenly come alive

and what people wanted to happen could happen—

all you had to do was say it.

Nobody can explain this:

That's the way it was.

~ after Nalungiaq

from The Angelic Poems

.
Before they ripen into diffused spirits
angels are leaf-stalks
and their wings begonia leaves
with dark surfaces
and red glitterings within.
Slowly, very slowly, they emerge out of the flower-pot
of the body,
take on the face of Bill or Bob,
pierce through the cool bower 
of the world and ascend like the promise
of a harmonious end;
on their lips shine
the last bubbles of our breathing,
those droplets 
of our unrelieved loneliness.
.
~ Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke

We come unsighted

.

We come, unsighted, in the dark,
to the great feast of lovers
where nothing is withheld.
That we are there we know
by touch, by inner sight.
They all are here, who by
their giving take, by taking
give, who by their living
love, and by loving live.
.
~ Wendell Berry

To a Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking
(It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.






~ Walt Whitman

Seventh Day Seventh Month

.

Tangle together like painted

Clouds on a screen, then,

Thighs enlaced, heads together

On the pillow we sing softly

To the full moon and watch time pass.

The declining moon marks the hours.

Suddenly we are seized by grief and fear.

Three o’clock in the morning

Has gone by but we cannot

Get enough of one another. Insatiable

Passion, night swift as the shuttle

In the loom. Oh heaven, what is

Your price for one more hour?

~ Kuan Yun She

if

.

 

 

If we are peaceful.

If we are happy.

We can smile and blossom

Like a flower.

 

And everyone

In our family,

Our entire society

Will benefit

From our peace.

 

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Our deepest fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

our presence automatically liberates others.

~ Marianne Williamson

For you to hear me

.

For you to hear me

my words

thin themselves out, at times,

like the trails of gulls on the shore.

A necklace of bones, a crazed rattle

for your fingers smooth as grapes.

And I look at my words from a distance.

More than mine they are yours.

Like tendrils they climb my ancient suffering.

They climb, like this, inside damp walls.

It is you the guilty one in this blood-wet round.

They are escaping from my dark covert.

You pervade everything, you, pervade everything.

They live, before you, in the solitude you enter,

and are accustomed, more than you, to my sadnesses.

Now I want them to say what I want them to tell you,

for you to hear as I want you to hear me.

The winds of misery may still bring them down.

Hurricanes of dream may still make them tumble.

You attend other voices, in my voice of pain,

Cries, of ancient mouths: blood, of ancient pleas.

Love me. Don’t leave me, friend. Follow me.

Follow me, friend, in this wave of misery.

They go on being miserly, with your love, my words.

You enter everything, you, enter everything.

I make, out of all this, an infinite necklace,

for your white fingers, smooth as grapes.

.

~ Pablo Neruda

Give me your hand

Give me your hand

 

Make room for me to lead

and follow you

beyond this rage of poetry.

 

Let othes have

the privacy of 

touching words

and love of loss

 of love.

 

For me 

Give me your hand.

 

 

 

~ Maya Angelou

 

 

 

 

When you are old and grey

.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
.
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
.
~ William Butler Yeats

.

sublime generosity

.

I was dead, then alive.

Weeping, then laughing.

.

The power of love came into me,

and I became fierce like a lion,

then tender like the evening star.

.

He said, "You're not mad enough.

You don't belong in this house."

.

I went wild and had to be tied up.

He said, "Still not wild enough

to stay with us!"

.

I broke though another layer

into joyfulness.

.

He said, "It's not enough."

I died.

.

He said, "You're a clever little man,

full of fantasy and doubting."

.

I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.

He said, "Now you're the candle

for this assembly."

.

But I'm no candle. Look!

I'm scattered smoke.

.

He said, "You are the sheikh, the guide."

But I'm not a teacher. I have not power.

.

He said, "You already have wings.

I cannot give you wings."

.

But I wanted his wings.

I felt like some flightless chicken.

.

Then nw events said to me,

"Don't move. A sublime generosity is

coming toward you."

.

And old love said, "Stay with me."

.

I said, "I will."

.

You are the fountain of the sun's light.

I am a willow shadow on the ground.

You make my raggedness silky.

.

The soul at dawn is like darkened water

that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you.

.

Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually

changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.

.

This comes of smiling back

at your smile.

.

The chess master says nothing,

other than moving the silent chess piece.

.

That I am part of the ploys

of this game makes me

amazingly happy.

.

~ Rumi

.

who empty the self

.

I honor those who try

to rid themselves of any lying,

who empty the self

and have only clear being there.

.

~ Rumi

.

In your light I learn how to love

.

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
.
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,
.
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.
.
~ Rumi

..

I go by a field

.
I go by a field where once
I cultivated a few poor crops.
It is now covered with young trees,
for the forest that belongs here
has come back and reclaimed its own.
And I think of all the effort
I have wasted and all the time,
and of how much joy I took
in that failed work and how much 
it taught me. For in so failing
I learned something of my place,
something of myself, and now
I welcome back the trees.
.
~ Wendell Berry
.