Tuesday, October 27, 2009

seeker of truth
follow no path
all paths lead where
truth is here

~ e.e. cummings

I dwell in Possibility

.
I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
.
Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--
.
Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--
.
~ Emily Dickinson

Thoreau's Journal

...
The obstacles which the heart meets with are like granite blocks which one alone cannot move. She who was as the morning light to me is now neither the morning star nor the evening star. We meet but to find each other further asunder, and the oftener we meet the more rapid our divergence. So a star of the first magnitude pales in the heavens, not from any fault in the observer’s eye nor from any fault in itself, perchance, but because its progress in its own system has put a greater distance between.
...
~ Henry David Thoreau

Monday, October 26, 2009

magic words



In the very earliest time,

when both people and animals lived on earth,
a person could become an animal if he wanted to
and an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
and sometimes animals
and there was no difference.
All spoke the same language.
That was the time when words were like magic.
The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance
might have strange consequences.
It would suddenly come alive
and what people wanted to happen could happen—
all you had to do was say it.
Nobody can explain this:
That's the way it was.




~ after Nalungiaq

from The Angelic Poems

.
Before they ripen into diffused spirits
angels are leaf-stalks
and their wings begonia leaves
with dark surfaces
and red glitterings within.
Slowly, very slowly, they emerge out of the flower-pot
of the body,
take on the face of Bill or Bob,
pierce through the cool bower 
of the world and ascend like the promise
of a harmonious end;
on their lips shine
the last bubbles of our breathing,
those droplets 
of our unrelieved loneliness.
.
~ Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke

Sunday, October 25, 2009

We come unsighted


.

We come, unsighted, in the dark,
to the great feast of lovers
where nothing is withheld.
That we are there we know
by touch, by inner sight.
They all are here, who by
their giving take, by taking
give, who by their living
love, and by loving live.
.
~ Wendell Berry

Saturday, October 24, 2009

To a Stranger




Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking
(It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.






~ Walt Whitman





Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Seventh Day Seventh Month

.
Tangle together like painted
Clouds on a screen, then,
Thighs enlaced, heads together
On the pillow we sing softly
To the full moon and watch time pass.
The declining moon marks the hours.
Suddenly we are seized by grief and fear.
Three o’clock in the morning
Has gone by but we cannot
Get enough of one another. Insatiable
Passion, night swift as the shuttle
In the loom. Oh heaven, what is
Your price for one more hour?


~ Kuan Yun She

if

.

 
 
If we are peaceful.
If we are happy.
We can smile and blossom
Like a flower.
 
And everyone
In our family,
Our entire society
Will benefit
From our peace.
 
 
 
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Our deepest fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.


~ Marianne Williamson


Tuesday, October 20, 2009

For you to hear me


.

For you to hear me
my words
thin themselves out, at times,
like the trails of gulls on the shore.
A necklace of bones, a crazed rattle
for your fingers smooth as grapes.
And I look at my words from a distance.
More than mine they are yours.
Like tendrils they climb my ancient suffering.
They climb, like this, inside damp walls.
It is you the guilty one in this blood-wet round.
They are escaping from my dark covert.
You pervade everything, you, pervade everything.
They live, before you, in the solitude you enter,
and are accustomed, more than you, to my sadnesses.
Now I want them to say what I want them to tell you,
for you to hear as I want you to hear me.
The winds of misery may still bring them down.
Hurricanes of dream may still make them tumble.
You attend other voices, in my voice of pain,
Cries, of ancient mouths: blood, of ancient pleas.
Love me. Don’t leave me, friend. Follow me.
Follow me, friend, in this wave of misery.
They go on being miserly, with your love, my words.
You enter everything, you, enter everything.
I make, out of all this, an infinite necklace,
for your white fingers, smooth as grapes.
.
~ Pablo Neruda


Give me your hand





Give me your hand
 
Make room for me to lead
and follow you
beyond this rage of poetry.
 
Let othes have
the privacy of 
touching words
and love of loss
 of love.
 
For me 
Give me your hand.
 
 
 
~ Maya Angelou
 
 
 
 

When you are old and grey

.


When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
.
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
.
~ William Butler Yeats

.

sublime generosity

.
I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.
.
He said, "You're not mad enough.
You don't belong in this house."
.
I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, "Still not wild enough
to stay with us!"
.
I broke though another layer
into joyfulness.
.
He said, "It's not enough."
I died.
.
He said, "You're a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting."
.
I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, "Now you're the candle
for this assembly."
.
But I'm no candle. Look!
I'm scattered smoke.
.
He said, "You are the sheikh, the guide."
But I'm not a teacher. I have not power.
.
He said, "You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings."
.
But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.
.
Then nw events said to me,
"Don't move. A sublime generosity is
coming toward you."
.
And old love said, "Stay with me."
.
I said, "I will."
.
You are the fountain of the sun's light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.
.
The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you.
.
Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.
.
This comes of smiling back
at your smile.
.
The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.
.
That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.
.
~ Rumi
.

who empty the self



.
I honor those who try
to rid themselves of any lying,
who empty the self
and have only clear being there.
.
~ Rumi
.