a dream

Now I am being buried in the earth. Every one leaves me and I am alone, quite alone. I do not stir… I lay there and — strange to say — I expected nothing, accepting without question that a dead man has nothing to expect. But it was damp. I do not know how long passed — an hour, a few days, or many days. Suddenly, on my left eye which was closed, a drop of water fell, which had leaked through the top of the grave. In a minute fell another, then a third, and so on, every minute. Suddenly, deep indignation kindled in my heart and suddenly in my heart I felt physical pain. ‘It’s my wound,’ I thought. ‘It’s where I shot myself. The bullet is there.’ And all the while the water dripped straight on to my closed eye. Suddenly, I cried out, not with a voice, for I was motionless, but with all my being, to the arbiter of all that was being done to me.

“Whosoever thou art, if thou art, and if there exists a purpose more intelligent than the things which are now taking place, let it be present here also. But if thou dost take vengeance upon me for my foolish suicide, then know, by the indecency and absurdity of further existence, that no torture whatever that may befall me, can ever be compared to the contempt which I will silently feel, even through millions of years of martyrdom.”

Suddenly a familiar yet most overwhelming emotion shook me through. I saw our sun. I knew that it could not be our sun, which had begotten our earth, and that we were an infinite distance away, but somehow all through me I recognized that it was exactly the same sun as ours, its copy and double. A sweet and moving delight echoed rapturously through my soul. The dear power of light, of that same light which had given me birth, touched my heart and revived it, and I felt life, the old life, for the first time since my death.

Oh, now — life, life! I lifted my hands and called upon the eternal truth, not called, but wept. Rapture, ineffable rapture exalted all my being. Yes, to live…

All are tending to one and the same goal, at least all aspire to the same goal, from the wise man to the lowest murderer, but only by different ways. It is an old truth, but there is this new in it: I cannot go far astray. I saw the truth. I saw and know that men could be beautiful and happy, without losing the capacity to live upon the earth. I will not, I cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of men… I saw the truth, I did not invent it with my mind. I saw, saw, and her living image filled my soul for ever. I saw her in such consummate perfection that I cannot possibly believe that she was not among men. How can I then go astray? … The living image of what I saw will be with me always, and will correct and guide me always. Oh, I am strong and fresh, I can go on, go on, even for a thousand years. …

And it is so simple… The one thing is — love thy neighbor as thyself — that is the one thing. That is all, nothing else is needed. You will instantly find how to live.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

the discovery of daily experience

It is a whisper. You turn somewhere,
hall, street, some great even: the stars
or the lights hold; your next step waits you
and the firm world waits - but
there is a whisper. You always live so,
a being that receives, or partly receives, or
fails to receive each moment's touch.

You see the people around you - the honors
they bear - a crutch, a cane, eye patch,
or the subtler ones, that fixed look, a turn
aside, or even the brave bearing: all declare
our kind, who serve on the human front and earn
whatever disguise will take them home. (I saw
Frank last week with his crutch de guerre.)

When the world is like this - and it is -
whispers, honors or penalties disguised - no wonder
art thrives like a pulse wherever civilized people,
or any people, live long enough in a place to
build, and remember, and anticipate; for we are
such beings as interact elaborately with what
surrounds us. The limited actual world we successively
overcome by fictions and by the mind's inventions
that cannot be quite arbitrary (and hence do reflect
the actual), but can escape the actual (and hence
may become art).

- William Stafford
from  Writing the Australian Crawl: 

Views on the Writer’s Vocation

what the heart wants

See then 

what the heart wants,

that pliable iron

sprung to the poppy's redness,

the honey's gold, winged

as the heron-lit water is:

by reflecting.

As an aged elephant answers

the slightest, first gesture of hand,

it puts itself at the mercy -

utterly docile, the forces

that brought it there vanished,

fold into fold.

And the old-ice ivory, the unstartlable

black of the eye that has traveled so far 

with the fringed, peripheral howdah

swaying behind, look mildly back

as it swings the whole bulk of the body

close to the ground.  Over and over

it does this, bends to what asks.

Whatever asks, heart kneels and offers to bear.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from The October Palace

thirst

.

.

Another morning and I wake with thirst

for the goodness I do not have. 

I walk out to the pond and all the way 

God has given us such beautiful lessons. 

Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked

and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; 

grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. 

Love for the earth and love for you 

are having such a long conversation in my heart. 

Who knows what will finally happen 

or where I will be sent, yet already 

I have given a great many things away, 

expecting to be told to pack nothing, 

except the prayers which, 

with this thirst,

I am slowly learning.

~ Mary Oliver

late have I loved thee

.

Late have I loved thee, O Beauty 

so ancient and so new;
late have I loved thee! For behold, 

thou wert within me and I outside;
and I sought thee outside

 and in my unloveliness
fell upon these lovely things 

that thou hast made. 

Thou wert with me and I

 was not with thee.
I was kept from thee by those things,
yet had they not been in thee,

 they would not have been at all. 

Thou didst call and cry to me

 and break open my deafness. . . .

I tasted thee, and now hunger

 and thirst for thee;
thou didst touch me,
and now I burn for thy peace. 

~ Saint Augustine of Hippo
from Confessions

 

 

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