respite

Day after quiet day passes.

I speak to no one besides the dog.

To her,

I murmur much I would not otherwise say.

We make plans

then break them on a moment's whim.

She agrees;

though sometimes bringing

to my attention a small blue ball.

Passing the fig tree

I see it is

 suddenly huge with green fruit,

which may ripen or not.

Near the gate,

I stop to watch

the sugar ants climb the top bar

and cross at the latch,

as they have now in summer for years.

In this way I study my life.

It is,

I think today,

like a dusty glass vase.

A little water, 

a few flowers would be good,

I think;

but do nothing. Love is far away.

Incomprehensible sunlight falls on my hand.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Lives of the Heart

where does the dance begin, where does it end?

.

.

Don't call the world adorable, or useful, that's not it.

It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.

The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.

The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white feet of the trees

whose mouths open.

Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?

Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe, until at last, now, the shine

in your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking

outward, to the mountains so solidly there

in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea

that was also there,

beautiful as a thumb

curved and touching the finger, tenderly,

little love-ring,

as he whirled,

oh jug of breath,

in the garden of dust?

.

~ Mary Oliver

from Why I wake Early

each separate fragment

.

Love all that has been created by God,

 both the whole and every grain of sand. 

Love every leaf and every ray of light. 

Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, 

love every separate fragment. 

If you love each separate fragment, 

you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God. 

~ Dostoyevsky

dog and bear

The air this morning,

blowing between fog and drizzle,

is like a white dog in the snow

who scents a white bear in the snow

who is not there.

Deeper than seeing,

deeper than hearing,

they stand and glare, one at the other.

So many listen lost, in every weather.

The mind has mountains,

Hopkins wrote, against his sadness.

The dog held the bear at bay, that day.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from After

photo by  Kathleen Connally

to be admired

.

They are to be admired those survivors

of solitude who have gone with no maps

into the room without feature,

where no wilderness awaits a footstep trace,

no path of dance to a cold summit

to look back on and feel exuberant,

no clarity of territories yet untouched

that tremble near the human breath,

no thickets of undergrowth with deep pores

to nest the litanies of wind addicted birds,

no friendship of other explorers

drawn into the dawn of the unknown.

No. They do not belong to the outside worship

of the earth, but risk themselves in the interior

space where the senses have nothing to celebrate,

where the air intensifies the intrusion of the human

and a poultice of silence pulls every sound

out of a circulation down into the ground,

where in the panic of being each breath unravels

an ever deeper strand in the web of weaving mind,

shawls of though fall off, empty and lost,

where the only red scream of blood continues unheard

within anonymous skin, and the end of all exploring

is the relentless arrival at an ever novel nowhere. 

~ John O'Donohue

from Echoes of Memory

clam

.

Each one is a small life, but sometimes long, if its

place in the universe is not found out. Like us, they

have a heart and a stomach; they know hunger, and

probably a little satisfaction too. Do not mock them

for their gentleness, they have a muscle that loves

being alive. They pull away from the light. They pull

down. They hold themselves together. They refuse to

open.

But sometimes they lose their place and are tumbled

shoreward in a storm. Then they pant, they fill

with sand, they have no choice but must open the

smallest crack. Then the fire of the world touches

them. Perhaps, on such days, they too begin the

terrible effort of thinking, of wondering who, and 

what, and why. If they can bury themselves again in 

the sand they will. If not, they are sure to perish,

though not quickly. They also have resources beyond 

the flesh; they also try very hard not to die.

~ Mary Oliver

from What Do We Know

with thanks to whiskeyriver

happy 70th bob, and thanks

.

born: May 24 1941

Duluth, Minnesota 

named Robert Allen Zimmerman

(Hebrew name Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham)

The truth was obscure, 

Too profound and too pure, 

To live it you had to explode

~ Bob Dylan

only one search

.

Lovers think they are looking for each other,

but there is only one search.

Wandering this world is wandering that,

both inside one transparent sky.

In here there is no dogma and no heresy.

The miracle of Jesus is himself,

not what he said or did about the future.

Forget the future. I would worship someone

who could do that.

On the way you may want to look back, or not,

but if you can say, "There is nothing ahead,"

there will be nothing there.

Stretch your arms and take hold

the cloth of your clothes with both hands.

The cure for pain is in the pain.

Good and bad are mixed. If you don't have both,

you do not belong with us.

When someone gets lost, is not here,

he must be inside us. There is no place like that

anywhere in the world.

.

~ Rumi

 translated by Coleman Barks

art: self portrait by picasso

floor

.

The nails, once inset, rise to the surface—

or, more truly perhaps, over years

the boards sink down to meet what holds them.

Worn, yes, but not worn through:

the visible work reveals itself in iron,

to be pounded down again, for what we've declared

the beautiful to be.

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

what waits within me

.

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.

I want to free what waits within me

so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear

without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,

but this is what I need to say.

May what I do flow from me like a river,

no forcing and no holding back,

the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,

these deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels

into the open sea.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Monastic Life

I'm here

.

I'm here. I'm always here. Even when I'm 'there', I'm here. 

I can't get away from here. Even when I try to escape here, I find 

myself here. Once I even managed to arrive 'there', but then I took a 

fresh look, and I was still here. Here follows me wherever I go. It's just 

always here, wherever I am. Hmm. Perhaps I am here. I mean, perhaps I 

*am* here! Perhaps here is what I actually am. That's why I'm always 

here...

~ Jeff Foster

.

ultimate word of truth

.

A monk asked Joshu, "What is the one ultimate word of truth?"

"Yes," was Joshu's reply.

The monk failed to see any sense in the master's reply, and so he asked the question again.

This time, Joshu roared in response, "I am not deaf!"

~  D. T. Suzuki

thanks to whiskey river

.

.

Gustav Mahler 

Born: 7 July 1860 in Kalischt, Bohemia,

Died: 18 May 1911 in Vienna,

was an Austrian composer and conductor of the late Romanticism to Modernism. 

He was not only one of the most important composers of the late Romantic period, 

but also one of the most famous conductors of his time as an opera director 

an important reformer of musical theater.

.

1892

with thanks to semsakrebsler

the dove in the belly - stop and listen

.

.

The whole of appearance is a toy. For this,

The dove in the belly builds his nest and coos,

Selah, tempestuous bird. How is it that

The rivers shine and hold their mirrors up,

Like excellence collecting excellence?

How is it that the wooden trees stand up

And live and heap their panniers of green

And hold them round the sultry day? Why should

These mountains being high be, also, bright,

Fetched up with snow that never falls to earth?

And this great esplanade of corn, miles wide,

Is something wished for made effectual

And something more. And the people in costumes,

Though poor, though raggeder than ruin, have that

Within them right for terraces—oh, brave salut!

Deep dove, placate you in your hiddenness.

~ Wallace Stevens

art by matisse, 1949

day and night

The sun rises and sets,

 it is day and night,

 it will go on thus for a long time.  

You get to think you are part of it and 

your circumstances are related to the cosmos, 

but one day your little system will break down 

and the day and night will rotate indifferently.  

Can this be?  

It seems more like the sunrise and sunset, 

the moon and stars, 

this new season, 

they are part of me. 

 I am sure they will never be the same without me,

for no one could see them just as I do.

.

~ Harlan Hubbard

journal entry March 9, 1963

woodcut by the author