the grammatist and the boatman

A grammatist once got into a boat.

That self-regarding man looked at the boatman

And said, 'Do you know grammar?'  'No,' he said.

'And half your life has gone!' he chided him.

The boatman's heart was broken by the pain,

but for the moment made his answer silence.

The wind then blew the boat into a whirlpool.

The boatman hollered to the grammatist,

'Do you know how to swim at all, please tell me?'

He said. 'Our boat is sinking in these whirlpools.'

Absorption's needed here, not grammar, see!'

If you're absorbed, jump in.  There is no danger.

The ocean wave will raise the dead aloft.

How can the living man escape the sea?

And if you've died to human qualities,

the sea of secrets sets you at its summit.

And you who've called the people asinine,

now you're the one who's like an ass on ice.

World's greatest scholar of your time you may be,

but note this world is passing - watch the time!

~ Rumi

from the Masnavi-ye Ma'navi

art by Theodore Clement Steele

when the dumb shall speak

There is a joyful night in which we lose

Everything, and drift

Like a radish

Rising and falling, and the ocean,

At last throws us into the ocean,

And on the water we are sinking

As if floating on darkness.

The body raging

And driving itself, disappearing in smoke,

Walks in large cities late at night,

Or reading the Bible in Christian Science windows,

Or reading a history of Bougainville.

Then the images appear:

Images of death,

Images of the body shaken in the grave,

And the graves filled with seawater;

Fires in the sea,

The ships smoldering like bodies,

Images of wasted life,

Life lost, imagination ruined,

The house fallen,

The gold sticks broken,

Then shall the talkative be silent,

And the dumb shall speak.

~ Robert Bly

from The Light Around the Body

photo by mudgalbharat

looking into a face

Conversation brings us so close! Opening

The surfs of the body,

Bringing fish up near the sun,

And stiffening the backbones of the sea!

I have wandered in a face, for hours,

Passing through dark fires.

I have risen to a body

Not yet born,

Existing like a light around the body,

Through which the body moves like a sliding moon.

~ Robert Bly

from The Light Around the Body

art by Leonardo da Vinci

peace of charity in the annihilated

Of this life, says Love, we wish to speak, in asking what one could find:

1. A Soul

2. who is saved by faith without works

3. who is only in love

4. who does nothing for God

5. who leaves nothing to do for God

6. to whom nothing can be taught

7. from whom nothing can be taken

8. nor given

9. and who possesses no will

~ Marguerite Porete

from Mirror of Simple Souls

english version by Ellen Babinsky

with thanks to poetry chaikhana

meditation

~ Dolano

you said is

you said Is

there anything which

is dead or alive more beautiful

than my body,to have in your fingers

(trembling ever so little)?

Looking into

your eyes Nothing,i said,except the

air of spring smelling of never and forever.

….and through the lattice which moved as

if a hand is touched by a

hand(which

moved as though

fingers touch a girl’s

breast,

lightly)

Do you believe in always,the wind

said to the rain

I am too busy with

my flowers to believe,the rain answered

e.e. cummings

from his Complete Poems (1904-1962)

with thanks to life love yoga

mirrors of perfection

The master bonesetter will pay his call

where there is someone with a broken leg.

When there's no sickly patient, how then can

the beauty of the healing arts be known?

And how can alchemy be seen if copper's

low-grade, inferior nature is not known?

Deficiencies are mirrors of perfection;

the vilest things are mirrors of His glory.

For opposites make known their opposites

as honey's taste is known is vinegar.

Whoever understands his own defects

has galloped to perfection with ten horses.

And why is he not flying to his Lord

is that he thinks himself already perfect.

There is no sickness of the soul that's worse

than being convinced of your perfection, sir!

Much blood must flow out of your heart and eyes

until this smugness takes its leave of you.

~ Rumi

from the Masnavi-ye Ma'navi

excerpt from Joseph and his guest
translation by alan williams

art by gustav klimt

confusion

The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the questions,

nor is it bought with going to amazing places.

Until you've kept your eyes

and your wanting still for years,

you don't begin to cross over from confusion.

~ Rumi

from The Essential Rumi

translations by Coleman Barks and John Moyne

News of the Universe

The first film to explore Bly’s long and prolific life - 

as poet, translator, mythologist, guiding light of men's work, 

antiwar activist and cultural gadfly.

~ Robert Bly

a shared language through metaphor

~ Jane Hirshfield

religion means

I think the word religion means gathering together
all energy at all levels, physical, moral, spiritual,
at all levels, gathering all this energy which will bring
about a great attention. And from there move.
To me that is the meaning of that word.

The gathering of total energy to understand
what thought cannot possibly capture.

Thought is never new, never free, and therefore
it's always conditioned, fragmentary, and so on.

So religion is not a thing put together by Thought,
or by fear, or by the pursuit of satisfaction and pleasure.
But something totally beyond all this, which isn't romanticism,
speculative belief, or sentimentality. And I think if we
could keep to the meaning of that word, putting aside
all the superstitious nonsense that is going on in the world
in the name of religion.

 

~ J. Krishnamurti

nocturne

You are woken in the night

by something that cannot speak

in daylight, that has no purchase

in the hard currency of your life.

Outside is the shallow well

of a sleeping town; electric lights

peek faintly into black space,

and the lithe ghost of the dark

slips into the only house that

bids it welcome. Your husband

lies snoring, dreams of another

world, offers you rough the gift

of aloneness. Know this:

what arrives here cannot

be other than itself, and

has no care for you. It

has no words, and no respect

for yours, so finds your body,

colonizes your spine, feeds

you up into the sea of stars. You

may think you are changing,

or hope; but you are simply

failing to forget, allowing

stillness to be recognized.

You are momentarily disappearing,

to enter your own voice, see

with your own eyes, become

the body you gave birth to;

you have returned to

your own faithfulness,

your own unimaginable

emptiness.

~ Andrew Colliver

from the unpublished manuscript A Day of Light

september

it rained in my sleep

and in the morning the fields were wet

I dreamed of artillery

of the thunder of horses

in the morning the fields were strewn

with twigs and leaves

as if after a battle

or a sudden journey

I went to sleep in the summer

I dreamed of rain

in the morning the fields were wet

and it was autumn

~ Linda Pastan

from Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems

with thanks to the mark on the wall

new rooms

The mind must

set itself up

wherever it goes

and it would be

most convenient

to impose its

old rooms — just

tack them up

like an interior

tent. Oh but

the new holes

aren't where

the windows

went.

~ Kay Ryan 

from Poetry July/August 2012

with thanks to whiskey river

exercise

First, forget what time it is

for an hour

do it regularly every day

then forget what day of the week it is

and do this regularly for a week

then forget what country you are in

and practice doing it in company

for a week

and then do them together

for a week

with as few breaks as possible 

follow these by forgetting to add

or to subtract

it makes no difference

you can change them

around after a week

both will help you later

to forget how to count 

forget how to count

starting with your own age

starting with how to count backwards

starting with even numbers

with Roman numerals

starting with fractions of Roman numerals

with the old calendar

going on to the old alphabet

going on to the alphabet

forgetting it all until everything

is continuous again 

go on to forgetting elements

starting with water

proceeding to earth

rising in fire 

forget fire 

~ W.S. Merwin

from Migration: New and Selected Poems

 with thanks to love is a place

photo by Ellis Nadler