in my wallet I carry a card

In my wallet I carry a card

which declares I have the power to marry.

In my wallet I carry a card

which declares I may drive.

 
In my wallet I carry a card

that says to a merchant I may be trusted to pay her.

 
In my wallet I carry a card

that states I can borrow a book in the town where I live.

 
In my hand I carry a card

Its lines declare I am cardless, carless,

stateless, and have no money.

It is buoyant and edgeless.

It names me one of the Order of All Who Will Die.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Beauty

  

forgiveness

~ Jack Kornfield

 

mosquito

I say I

and

a small mosquito drinks from my tongue

but many say we and hear I

say you or he and 

hear I

what can we do with this problem

a bowl held in both hands

cannot be filled by the holder

x, says the blue whale

x, say the krill

solve for y, says the ocean, then multiply by existence

the feet of an ant make their own sound on the earth

ice is astonished by water

a person misreads

delirium as delphinium

and falls into

a blueness sleepy as beauty when sneezing

the pronoun dozes

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Beauty

my species

even

a small purple artichoke

boiled

in its own bittered

and darkening

waters

grows tender,

grows tender and sweet

patience, I think,

my species

keep testing the spiny leaves

the spiny heart

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The Beauty

anxiety starts to disintegrate

Being conscious is cutting through your own melodrama

 and being right here. Exist in no mind, be empty, here now, 

and trust that as a situation arises, out of you will come 

what is necessary to deal with that situation 

including the use of your intellect when appropriate. 

 

Your intellect need not be constantly held on to keep reassuring

 you that you know where you’re at, out of fear of loss of control.

Ultimately,  that anxiety starts to disintegrate.

 And you start to define yourself as in flow with the universe; 

and whatever comes along—death, life joy, sadness

—is grist for the mill of awakening.

 

 

 

 

Ram Dass 

rain light

All day the stars watch from long ago

my mother said I am going now

when you are alone you will be all right

whether or not you know you will know

look at the old house in the dawn rain

all the flowers are forms of water

the sun reminds them through a white cloud

touches the patchwork spread on the hill

the washed colors of the after life

that lived there long before you were born 

see how they wake without a question

even through the whole world is burning

~ W. S. Merwin

from The Shadow of Sirius
iris by van gogh

grow accustomed

We grow accustomed to the Dark -

When light is put away -

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye -

A Moment - We uncertain step

For newness of the night -

Then - fit our Vision to the Dark -

And meet the Road - erect -

And so of larger - Darkness -

Those Evenings of the Brain -

When no a Moon disclose a sign -

Or Star - come out - within -

The Bravest - grope a little -

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead -

 But as they learn to see -

Either the Darkness alters -

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight -

And Life steps almost straight.

~ Emily Dickenson 

the last day

This may be the last day of my life.

I lifted my right hand to wave at the sun,

but I did not wave at it in farewell.

I was glad I could still see it - that's all.

~ Fernando Pessoa

translation by Richard Zenith

 

love

Love means to learn to look at yourself

The way one looks at distant things

For you are only one thing among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,

Without knowing it, from various ills—

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things

So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:

Who serves best doesn't always understand.

~ Czeslaw Milosz

translation by Robert Hass

from The Collected Poems

art by Picasso

so little

I said so little.

Days were short.

Short days.

Short nights.

Short years.

I said so little.

I couldn't keep up.

My heart grew weary

From joy,

Despair,

Ardor,

Hope.

The jaws of Leviathan

Were closing upon me.

Naked, I lay on the shores

Of desert islands.

The white whale of the world

Hauled me down to its pit.

And now I don’t know

What in all that was real.

~ Czeslaw Milosz

translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Lillian Vallee

priceless gifts

An empty day without events.

And that is why

it grew immense

as space. And suddenly

happiness of being

entered me.

I heard

in my heartbeat

the birth of time

and each instant of life

one after the other

came rushing in

like priceless gifts.

~ Anna Swirszczynska

from Talking to My Body

 translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan

between the roof planks

It is true,

the wind blows terribly here -

but moonlight

also leaks between the roof planks

of this ruined house.

~ Izumi Shikibu, (974-1034)

She is considered by some to be the greatest woman poet of Japanese literature.

from:  Women in Praise of the Sacred, edited by Jane Hirshfield

the white horse

 The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on

and the horse looks at him in silence.

They are so silent they are in another world.

~ D. H. Lawrence

singing

On a branch

floating downriver,

a cricket singing.

Issa

 art by Seiko

 

all will come again

All will come again into its strength:

the fields undivided, the waters undammed,

the trees towering and the walls built low.

And in the valleys, people as strong

and varied as the land.

And no churches where God

is imprisoned and lamented

like a trapped and wounded animal.

The houses welcoming all who knock

and a sense of boundless offering

in all relations, and in you and me.

No yearning for an afterlife, no looking beyond,

no belittling of death,

but only longing for what belongs to us

and serving earth, lest we remain unused.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke
 from: 'The Book of Hours'