All my body calls

All my body calls

for something in this sleeping

earth

we call the spirit.

But how

from lifted arms

where stars run through fingers

and the night is like sand

do I breathe a fragrance of its wisdom

do I call its name

or listen to the drops

that trickle down to earth

and hear

life being given

not only through the moving hands of the forest

but through the hand that reaches in

the dark unmoving regions of the chest

and uncovers slowly

the enormous

indistinct

shape of the ocean.

~  David Whyte 

a monk sips morning tea

A monk sips morning tea,

it's quiet,

the chrysanthemum's flowering.

~ Matsuo Basho

translated by Robert Hass 

Flowering Vetch

Each of the tragedies can be read

as the tale of a single ripening self,

every character part of one soul.

The comedies can be included in this as well.

Often the flaw is a flaw of self-knowledge;

sometimes greed.  For this reason

the comic glint of a school of herring leads to no plot line,

we cannot imagine a tragedy of donkeys or bees.

Before the ordinary realities, ordinary failures:

hunger, coldness, anger, longing, heat.

Yet one day, a thought as small as a vetch flower opens.

After, no longer minding the minor and almost wordless role,

playing the messenger given the letter

everyone knows will arrive too late or ruined by water.

To have stopped by the fig and eaten was not an error, then,

but the reason for going.

~  Jane Hirshfield

from After

Inter-us

.

You are me and I am you.
Isn't it obvious that we inter-are?
You cultivate the flower in yourself
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself
so that you do not have to suffer.
I support you you support me.
I am here to bring you peace
you are here to bring me joy

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

unlived

.

No one lives his life.

Disguised since childhood,

haphazardly assembled

from voices and fears and little pleasures,

we come of age as masks.

Our true face never speaks.

Somewhere there must be storehouses

where all these lives are laid away

like suits of armor or old carriages

or clothes hanging limply on the walls.

Maybe all paths lead there,

to the repository of unlived things.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

art by picasso

a fig in winter

Although from the beginning

I knew

the world is impermanent,

not a moment passes

when my sleeves are dry.

~ Ryokan

When you are delighted with anything, be delighted as with a thing which is not one of those which cannot be taken away, but as something of such a kind, as an earthen pot is, or a glass cup, that, when it has been broken, you may remember what it was and may not be troubled… What you love is nothing of your own: it has been given to you for the present, not that it should not be taken from you, nor has it been given to you for all time, but as a fig is given to you or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year. But if you wish for these things in winter, you are a fool. So if you wish for your son or friend when it is not allowed to you, you must know that you are wishing for a fig in winter.

At the times when you are delighted with a thing, place before yourself the contrary appearances.


~ Epictetus
from The Discourses of Epictetus

with thanks to brainpickings