floating

The one close to me now,

even my own body -

these too

will soon become clouds,

floating in different directions.

~ Izumi Shikibu

from The Ink Dark Moon

translations by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani

perhaps

Placido Domingo and John Denver

A land not mine

A land not mine, still

forever memorable,

the waters of its ocean

chill and fresh.

Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk,

and the air drunk, like wine,

late sun lays bare

the rosy limbs of the pinetrees.

Sunset in the ethereal waves:

I cannot tell if the day

is ending, or the world, or if

the secret of secrets is inside me again.

~ Anna Akhmatova, 
(1889-1966), 

born in Odessa, grew up in Tsarkoye Selo, 
the imperial retreat outside St. Petersburg.  
Unhappily married to Nikolai Gumilev, the well known poet.

scattering

A string of jewels

from a broken necklace,

scattering -

more difficult to keep hold of

even than these in one's life.

~ Izumi Shikibu

from The Ink Dark Moon

sleep

I love to lie down weary

under the stalk of sleep

growing slowly out of my head,

the dark leaves meshing.

~ Wendell Berry

from Farming Poems

art Rembrandt

the waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me, so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

~ Theodore Roethke

~ Kurt Elling

overly bold

When people become overly bold,

then disaster will soon arrive.

Do not meddle with people's livelihoods;

if you respect them, they will in turn respect you.

Therefore, the Master knows herself but is 

not arrogant.

She loves herself but also loves others.

This is how she is able to make appropriate choices.

~ Lao Tzu

from the Tao Te Ching

translation by j.h.mcdonald

a one-man revolution

I bid you to a one-man revolution -

The only revolution that is coming.

...

We're too unseparate.  And going home

From company means coming to our senses.

~ Robert Frost

from Building Soil

art by Frida Kahlo

should I

Should I leave this burning house

of ceaseless thought

and taste the pure rain's

single truth

falling upon my skin?

~ Izumi Shikibu

from The Ink Dark Moon

translations by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani

art by kristine wyler

quiet and secret

Keep quiet and secret with your soul-work.

Don’t worry so much about your body.

God sewed that robe. Leave it as it is.

Be more deeply courageous.

Change your soul.

~ Attar of Nishapur (1145-1221)

translated by Coleman Barks

photo by eliot porter

Attar's Tomb - photo by Nik Pendaar

what things want

You have to let things

Occupy their own space.

This room is small,

But the green settee

Likes to be here.

The big marsh reeds,

Crowding out the slough,

Find the world good.

You have to let things

Be as they are.

Who knows which of us

Deserves the world more?

~ Robert Bly
photo by Shreve Stockton

not the flower

As I dig for wild orchids

in the autumn fields,

it is the deeply-bedded root

that I desire,

not the flower.

~ Izumi Shikibu

from The Ink Dark Moon

man born in tao

Fishes are born in water

Man is born in Tao.

If fishes, born in water,

Seek the deep shadow

Of pond and pool,

All their needs 

Are satisfied.

If man, born in Tao,

Sinks into the deep shadow

Of non-action

To forget aggression and concern,

He lacks nothing

His life is secure.

Moral: "All the fish needs

Is to get lost in water.

All man needs is to get lost

In Tao."

~ Chuang Tzu

translation by Thomas Merton

art by Bada Shanren 
who lived during the beginning of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911)

the sorrel filly

The songs of small birds fade away

into the bushes after sundown,

the air dry, sweet with goldenrod.

Beside the path, suddenly, bright asters

flare in the dusk.  The aged voices

of a few crickets thread the silence.

It is a quiet I love, though my life

too often drives me through it deaf,

Busy with cost and losses, I waste

the time I have to be here - a time

blessed beyond my deserts, as I know,

if only I would keep aware.  The leaves

rest in the air, perfectly still,

I would like them to rest in my mind

as still, as simply spaced.  As I approach,

the sorrel filly looks up from her grazing,

poised there, light on the slope

as a young apple tree.  A week ago

I took her away to sell, and failed

to get my price, and brought her home 

again.  Now in the quiet I stand

and look at her a long time, glad

to have recovered what is lost

in the exchange of something for money.

~ Wendell Berry

from Farming Poems

photo from hopes creek ranch

some like poetry

Some--

that means not all.

Not even the majority of all but the minority.

Not counting the schools, where one must,

and the poets themselves, there will be perhaps two in a thousand.

Like--

but one also likes chicken noodle soup,

one likes compliments and the color blue, one likes an old scarf,

one likes to prove one's point,

one likes to pet a dog.

Poetry--

but what sort of thing is poetry?

More than one shaky answer

has been given to this question.

But I do not know and do not know and clutch on to it,

as to a saving bannister.

~ Wislawa Szymborska

with thanks to parabola

Original painting by

Caspar David Friedrich

Digital adaption by 

Simon Max Bannister 2012