I sent my soul

.

I sent my soul into the invisible,

Some letter of that after life to spell.

And by and by my soul returned to me

And answered, I myself am heaven and hell.

.

~ Omar Khayyam 

from The Rubaiyat

.

a symphony

.

.

...Ever since I was a child, I have had the tendency to create a fictitious world around me, to surround myself with friends and acquaintances who never existed. ( I don’t know, of course, if they didn't really exist or if it is me who doesn't exist. On such matters, as in all others, one shouldn't be dogmatic.) Ever since I became aware of the thing that I call self, I can remember with mental precision, the figures, the movements, the character and the history of several fictitious people who were, to me, as visible and mine as those things which we, perhaps abusively, call real life. This tendency, which exists since I realized that I was a self, has always been with me, modifying slightly the kind of music it uses to bewitch me but never altering its manner of bewitching.

.

~ Fernando Pessoa

in a letter to his friend Casais Monteiro

.

My soul is like a hidden orchestra; I do not know which instruments 

grind and play away inside of me, strings and harps, timbales and drums. 

I can only recognize myself as a symphony.

.

from The Book of Disquiet

.

present truth

.

one must be 

in the moment 

for life to 

ever come true 

.

touch the ground 

and be grounded 

find comfort here 

.

living, being, 

breathing, now 

this is where 

it will all happen

.

~ Benjamin Dean

from straighten the heart, the mind disappears

.

ash ode

.

.

When I saw you ahead I ran two blocks 

shouting your name then realizing it wasn't 

you but some alarmed pretender, I went on 

running, shouting now into the sky, 

continuing your fame and luster. Since I've

 been incinerated, I've oft returned to this thought, 

that all things loved are pursued and never caught, 

even as you slept beside me you were flying off. 

At least what's never had can’t be lost, the sieve 

of self stuck with just some larger chunks, jawbone, 

wedding ring, a single repeated dream, 

a lullaby in every elegy, descriptions 

of the sea written in the desert, your broken 

umbrella, me claiming I could fix it.

.

~ Dean Young

I died for beauty

.

I died for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

.

He questioned softly why I failed?

“For beauty,” I replied.

“And I for truth, -the two are one;

We brethren are,” he said.

.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

.

~ Emily Dickinson

.

da capo

Take the used-up heart like a pebble

and throw it far out.

Soon there is nothing left.

Soon the last ripple exhausts itself

in the weeds.

Returning home, slice onions, carrots, celery.

Glaze them in oil before adding

the lentils, water, and herbs.

Then the roasted chestnuts, a little pepper, the salt.

Finish with goat cheese and parsley. Eat.

You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted.

Begin again the story of your life.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Lives of the Heart

unpetalled

.

I unpetalled you, like a rose,

to see your soul,

and I didn't see it.

.

But everything around

--horizons of lands and of seas--

everything, out to the infinite,

was filled with a fragrance,

enormous and alive.

.

~ Juan Ramon Jimenez

translated by Stephen Mitchell

.

in a stolen boat

push off what seemed safe: The fishing dock,

pitch pines, children glazed to sheen

by ruthless summers. Past

 

the jetty, past the past, to open sea--

all violet and green, that choppy path between doom and luck--

Put your back into it, and row.

 

 

 

~ April Bernard

.

this love has no name

Holiness is falling in love with your own self.

This is devotion, and it is not different from love!

What you love you are devoted to and

what you are devoted to you love.

When this love has no object, and goes nowhere

but to itself, it will reveal itself to you in whatever

form you desire; manifest or unmanifest.

If you desire this love don't try to love a particular

person because this love has no personality, no

form, and no name. God is this love.

~ Papaji

from The Truth Is

in a train

.

There has been a light snow.

Dark car tracks move in out of the darkness.

I stare at the train window marked with soft dust.

I have awakened at Missoula Montana utterly happy.

.

~ Robert Bly

.

hidden things

.

.

After Long Busyness

.

I start out for a walk at last after weeks at the desk.

Moon gone plowing underfoot no stars; not a trace of light!

Suppose a horse were galloping toward me in this open field?

Every day I did not spend in solitude was wasted.

.

.

Watering the Horse

How strange to think of giving up all ambition!

Suddenly I see with such clear eyes

The white flake of snow

That has just fallen in the horse's mane!

.

~ Robert Bly

a life entirely given

.

.

Hell is timely, for Hell is the thought

that Hell will go on, on and on, without end.

Heaven is only present, instantaneous and eternal,

a mayfly, a blue dayflower, a life entirely given,

complete forever in its hour.

.

~ Wendell Berry

from Leavings

photo by magda berny

.

newness

When we are alone on a starlit night,
 when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn
 descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see 
children in a moment when they are really children, 
when we know love in our own hearts; or when, 
like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog
 land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times
 the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, 
the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make
 themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

~ Thomas Merton

photo by Kathleen Connally

One Valley

.

.

Once I thought I could find

where it began

but that never happened

though I went looking for it

time and again

cutting my way past 

empty pools and dry waterfalls

where my dog ran straight up the stone

like an unmoored flame

.

it seemed that the beginning

could not be far then as I went on through the trees 

over the rocks toward the mountain

until I came out in the open

and saw no sign of it

.

where the roaring torrent

raced at one time

to carve farther down

those high walls in the stone

for the silence that I hear now

day and night on its way to the sea

.

~ W.S. Merwin
from The Shadow of Sirius
photo by Ansel Adams

.

a song on the end of the world

On the day the world ends

A bee circles a clover,

A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

By the rainspout young sparrows are playing

And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends

Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,

A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,

Vegetable peddlers shout in the street

And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

The voice of a violin lasts in the air

And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder

Are disappointed.

And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps

Do not believe it is happening now.

As long as the sun and the moon are above,

As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,

As long as rosy infants are born

No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,

Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:

There will be no other end of the world,

There will be no other end of the world.

~  Czeslaw Milosz