alzheimer's

.

When a fine old carpet

is eaten by mice,

the colors and patterns

of what’s left behind

do not change.

As bedrock, tilted,

stays bedrock,

its purple and red striations unbroken.

Unstrippable birthright grandeur.

“How are you,” I asked,

not knowing what to expect.

“Contrary to Keatsian joy,” he replied.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief

art by Camille Pissarro, 1877

the cloudy vase

.

Past time,

I threw the flowers out,

washed out

the cloudy vase.

How easily

the old clearness

leapt,

like a practiced tiger,

back inside it.

~ Jane Hirshfield

art by leonardo da vinci, 
 Galleria Nazionale, Parma, Italy.

the boundaries of my being had disappeared

I looked for my self, but my self was gone.

The boundaries of my being

had disappeared in the sea.

Waves broke. Awareness rose again.

And a voice returned me to myself.

It always happens like this.

Sea turns on itself and foams,

and with every foaming bit

another body, another being takes form.

And when the sea sends word,

each foaming body

melts back to ocean-breath.

 ~ Rumi 

translation by Coleman Barks

art by van gogh

call and answer

.

Tell me why it is we don’t lift our voices these days

And cry over what is happening. Have you noticed

The plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting?

I say to myself: “Go on, cry. What’s the sense

Of being an adult and having no voice? Cry out!

See who will answer! This is Call and Answer!”

We will have to call especially loud to reach

Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding

In the jugs of silence filled during our wars.

Have we agreed to so many wars that we can’t

Escape from silence? If we don’t lift our voices, we allow

Others (who are ourselves) to rob the house.

How come we've listened to the great criers—Neruda,

Akhmatova, Thoreau, Frederick Douglass—and now

We’re silent as sparrows in the little bushes?

Some masters say our life lasts only seven days.

Where are we in the week? Is it Thursday yet?

Hurry, cry now! Soon Sunday night will come.

~ Robert Bly

opening the hands between here and here

.

On the dark road, only the weight of the rope.

Yet the horse is there.

~ Jane Hirshfield

A Suite of Appearances

.

In another time, we will want to know how the earth looked

then, and were people the way we are now. In another time,

the records they left will convince us that we are unchanged

and could be at ease in the past, and not alone in the present.

And we shall be pleased. But beyond all that, what cannot

be seen or explained will always be elsewhere, always supposed,

invisible even beneath the signs – the beautiful surface,

the uncommon knowledge – that point its way. In another time,

what cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted

to say that language is error, and all things are wronged

by representation. The self, we shall say, can never be

seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.

~ Mark Strand

with thanks to whiskey river

birds nest

.

Birds nest in my arms,

on my shoulders, behind my knees,

between my breasts there are quails,

they must think I'm a tree.

The swans think I'm a fountain,

they all come down and drink when I talk.

When sheep pass, they pass over me,

and perched on my fingers, the sparrows eat,

the ants think I'm earth,

and men think I'm nothing.

~ Gloria Fuertes

translated by Philip Levine

sketch by van gogh

the holy longing

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,

because the massman will mock it right away.

I  praise what is truly alive,

what longs to flame to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights

where you were begotten,  where you have begotten,

a strange feeling comes over you

when you see the silent candle burning..

Now you are no longer caught

in the obsession with darkness,

and a desire for higher love-making

sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter,

now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light

you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced

this: to die and so to grow,

you are only a troubled guest

on the dark earth.

~ Goethe
translation by Robert Bly
art by van gogh

.

names

.

You should try to hear the name the Holy One has for things.

There is something in the phrase: "The Holy One taught him names."

We name everything according to the number of legs it has;

The holy one names it according to what is inside.

Moses waved his stick; he thought it was a "rod."

But inside its name was "dragonish snake."

We thought the name of Umar meant: "agitator against priests;"

But in eternity his name is "the one who believes."

No one knows our name until our last breath goes out.

~ Rumi

version by Robert Bly

the teaching

Enlightenment absorbs this universe of qualities.

When that merging occurs, there is nothing

but God. This is the only doctrine. 

There is no word for it, no mind

to understand it with, no categories

of transcendence or non-transcendence,

no vow of silence, no mystical attitude. 

There is no Shiva and no Shakti

in enlightenment, and if there is something

that remains, that whatever-it-is

is the only teaching. 

~ Lalla

across the swamp

.

It is the roots from all the trees that have died

out here, that's how you can walk

safely over the soft places.

Roots like these keep their firmness, it's possible

they've lain here centuries.

And there is still some dark remains

of them under the moss.

They are still in the world and hold

you up so you can make it over.

And when you push out into the mountain lake, high

up, you feel how the memory

of that cold person

who drowned himself here once

helps hold up your frail boat.

He, really crazy, trusted his life

to water and eternity.

~ Olav H. Hauge

translated by Robert Bly

photo by Jay Sturdevant

knowing nothing

.

Knowing nothing shuts the iron gates;

the new love opens them.

The sound of the gates opening wakes the beautiful woman asleep.

Kabir says:   Fantastic!  Don't let a chance like this go by!

~ Kabir

version by Robert Bly

the threshers

.

There's no use whining over lost worlds.

The old chicken never picks up the last grains,

And the threshers usually go home when night comes.

Have we thanked the sun for shining so well?

Have we blessed the clouds for their thoughtfulness?

Have we thanked the rain that falls on the fields?

It would be good to go back a hundred years,

And recite some of Wordsworth's sonnets to him.

But it's probable best to let him go on walking.

Let's just agree we're on our own now,

And that we have to wash our own pajamas,

And figure out some way to get home.

We can still tell stories about the Dillinger boys,

And we can still buy balloons for our children,

But it will be hard to make up The Book of Hours.

We know that most lost fathers never return,

And the clocks run only one way,

And the threshers always go home when night comes.

~ Robert Bly

from Talking into the Ear of a Donkey

art by van gogh

these also once under moonlight

.

A snake

with two small hind-limbs

and pelvic girdle.

Large-headed dinosaurs

hunting in packs like dogs.

Others whose scaly plates

thistle to feathers.

Mammals sleekening, ottering,

simplified

back toward the waters.

Ours, too, a transitional species,

chimerical, passing,

what is later, always, called monstrous -

no longer one thing, not yet another.

Fossils greeting fossils,

fearful, hopeful.

Walking, sleeping, waking, wanting to live.

Nuzzling our young wildly, as they did.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief

vinegar and oil

.

Wrong solitude vinegars the soul,

right solitude oils it.

How fragile we are, between the few good moments.

Coming and going unfinished,

puzzled by fate,

like the half-carved relief

of a fallen donkey, above a church door in Finland.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief