Going Blind

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She sat just like the others at the table.

But on second glance, she seemed to hold her cup

a little differently as she picked it up.

She smiled once.  It was almost painful.

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And when they finished and it was time to stand

and slowly, as chance selected them, they left 

and moved through many rooms (they talked and laughed),

I saw her.  She was moving far behind

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the others, absorbed, like someone who will soon 

have to sing before a large assembly; 

upon her eyes, which were radiant with joy,

light played as on the surface of a pool.

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She followed slowly, taking a long time,

as though there were some obstacle in the way;

and yet: as though, once it was overcome,

she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.

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~  Rainer Maria Rilke

from New Poems

translated by Stephen Mitchell

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on the anniversary of my death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day 

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveler

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what

~ W.S. Merwin

light

Light cannot see inside things.

That is what the dark is for:

Minding the interior,

Nurturing the draw of growth

Through places where death

In its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times,

Let our eyes not be worn

By surfaces that shine

With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light,

Finding their way into words

Which have the weight of shadow

To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust

In minds claimed by empty light,

Where one-sided certainties

Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,

May our eyes have the kindness

And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds

Be equal to the oblique

Crevices and corners where

The mystery continues to dwell,

Glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside

The dark house of suffering

That moonlight might find a window.

When we become false and lost

That the severe noon-light

Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light

Would lighten our feet

Upon the waters.

As we grow old, that twilight

Would illuminate treasure

In the fields of memory.

And when we come to search for God,

Let us first be robed in night,

Put on the mind of morning

To feel the rush of light

Spread slowly inside

The color and stillness

Of a found word.

~ John O'Donohue (1956-2008)

from To Bless the Space Between Us

photo by Alan Schaller

The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

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I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

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And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

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I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

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~ William Butler Yeats

find more at: http://www.online-literature.com

yeats portrait by John Singer Sargent - 1908

This poem was one of the first poems by Yeats. It was written when the author was young, twenty-five years old, and he was living in London. The isle of the poem really exists, and is situated in Ireland, in Lough Gill. There were two main reasons why the poet wrote these verses: firstly, he was a young Irish person who was living in London, a big city which is not in his country. Ireland is a country whose economy was based on the agriculture, so Yeats wants to return to this type of life, the life of his childhood, secondly, at that moment, Yeats knew of and read Thoreau and wanted to emulate him.

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The Swan

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This laboring through what is still undone,

as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,

is like the awkward walking of the swan.

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And dying - to let go, no longer feel

the solid ground we stand on every day -

is like his anxious letting himself fall

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into the water, which receives him gently

and which, as though with reverence and joy,

draws back past him in streams on either side;

while, infinitely silent and aware,

in his full majesty and ever more

indifferent, he condescends to glide.

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~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from New Poems

translated by Stephen Mitchell

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stand firm

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I said to the wanting-creature inside me:

What is this river you want to cross?

There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.

Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or nesting?

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There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.

There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.

There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!

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And there is no body, and no mind!

Do you believe there is some place that will make the

soul less thirsty?

In that great absence you will find nothing.

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Be strong then, and enter into your own body;

there you have a solid place for your feet.

Think about it carefully!

Don't go off somewhere else!

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Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of

imaginary things,

and stand firm in that which you are. 

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~ Kabir

thanks to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights

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When I was a boy...

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When I was a boy 

a god would often rescue me 

from the shouting and violence of humans. 

Then, safe and well, I would play 

with the meadow flowers, 

and heaven's breezes 

would play with me. 

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And as you delight the heart 

of plants, stretching their tender 

arms toward you, 

Father Helios, 

so you delighted my heart, 

and I was your beloved, 

holy Luna, just like Endymion!

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All you faithful 

friendly gods! 

I wish you knew 

how my soul loved you!

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Naturally I couldn't call you 

by name then, nor did you use 

mine, as humans do, as if 

they really knew each other.

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But I was better acquainted with you 

than I ever was with humans. 

I knew the stillness of the Aether: 

I never understood the words of men.

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The euphony of the rustling 

meadow was my education; 

among flowers I learned to love.

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I grew up 

in the arms of the gods.

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~ Friedrich Hölderlin

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the joy that shapes dance

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Sound and gesture are contemporary,

identical and indistinguishable...

Linked to its own past,

the gesture fills up with music

and becomes rounded,

like the universe...

The beauty of gesture

renders time visible.

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~ Catherine David

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Stillness,

 is the canvas 

against which movement 

can become beautiful.

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~ John O'Donohue

from The Invisible Embrace, Beauty

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How it Happens

 

 

 

The sky said I am watching

to see what you

can make out of nothing

I was looking up and I said

I thought you

were supposed to be doing that

the sky said Many

are clinging to that

I am giving you a chance

I was looking up and I said

I am the only chance I have

then the sky did not answer

and here we are

with our names for the days

the vast days that do not listen to us

 

 

 

~ W. S. Merwin

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The Gazelle

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Enchanted thing: how can two chosen words

ever attain the harmony of pure rhyme

that pulses through you as your body stirs?

Out of your forehead branch and lyre climb,

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and all your features pass in simile,through

the songs of love whose words, as light as rose-

petals, rest on the face of someone who 

has put his book away and shut his eyes:

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to see you: tensed, as it each leg were a gun

loaded with leaps, but  not fired while your neck

holds your head still, listening: as when,

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while swimming in some isolated place,

a girl hears leaves rustle, and turns to look:

the forest pool reflected in her face.

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~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell

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Dogs

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Many times loneliness

is someone else

an absence

then when loneliness is no longer

someone else many times

it is someone else's dog

that you're keeping

then when the dog disappears

and the dog's absence

you are alone at last

and loneliness many times

is yourself

that absence

but at last it may be

that you are your own dog

hungry on the way

the one sound climbing a mountain

higher than time

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~ W.S. Merwin

Writings To An Unfinished Accompaniment

thanks to http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/

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Lights Out

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The old grieving autumn goes on calling to its summer

the valley is calling to other valleys beyond the ridge

each star is roaring alone into darkness

there is not a sound in the whole night

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~ W.S. Merwin

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the deep innerness of all things

You are the future, 

the red sky before sunrise

over the fields of time.

You are the cock's crow when night is done,

you are the dew and the bells of matins,

maiden, stranger, mother, death.

You create yourself in ever-changing shapes

that rise from the stuff of our days -

unsung, unmourned, undescribed,

like a forest we never know.

You are the deep innerness of all things,

the last word that can never be spoken.

To each of us you reveal yourself differently:

to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Pilgrimage, II,22

deep inside the flower

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I know of a place not ruled by flatness 

Or constant risings depressions, 

 those alive are not afraid to die. 

There wild flowers come up through the leafy floor, 

 the fragrance of "I am he" floats on the wind. 

...There the love bee stays deep inside the flower 

and cares for no other thing.

~ Kabir

transparent

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When all thoughts 

Are exhausted

I slip into the woods

And gather

A pile of shepherd's purse.

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Like the little stream

Making its way

Through the mossy crevices

I, too, quietly

Turn clear and transparent.

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~ Ryokan

photo by Jack Spencer

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