Animals

.

At dawn a knot of sea-lions lies off the shore
In the slow swell between the rock and the cliff,
Sharp flippers lifted, or great-eyed heads, as they roll in the sea,
Bigger than draft-horses, and barking like dogs
Their all-night song. It makes me wonder a little
That life near kin to human, intelligent, hot-blooded, idle and 
     singing, can float at ease
In the ice-cold midwinter water. Then, yellow dawn
Colors the south, I think about the rapid and furious lives
     in the sun :
They have little to do with ours; they have nothing to do with
     oxygen and salted water ; they would look monstrous
If we could see them : the beautiful passionate bodies of living
    flame, batlike flapping and screaming,
Tortured with burning lust and acute awareness, that ride the
     storm-tides
Of the great fire-globe. They are animals, as we are. There are
     many other chemistries of animal life
Besides the slow oxidation of carbohydrates and amino-acids.
.
~ Robinson Jeffers

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

In your light I learn how to love

.

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
.
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,
.
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.
.
~ Rumi

..

I go by a field

.
I go by a field where once
I cultivated a few poor crops.
It is now covered with young trees,
for the forest that belongs here
has come back and reclaimed its own.
And I think of all the effort
I have wasted and all the time,
and of how much joy I took
in that failed work and how much 
it taught me. For in so failing
I learned something of my place,
something of myself, and now
I welcome back the trees.
.
~ Wendell Berry
.

The law is the husk of faith

.
The highest good is not to seek to do good,
but to allow yourself to become it.
The ordinary person seeks to do good things,
and finds that they can not do them continually.
.
The Master does not force virtue on others,
thus she is able to accomplish her task.
The ordinary person who uses force,
will find that they accomplish nothing.
.
The kind person acts from the heart,
and accomplishes a multitude of things.
The righteous person acts out of pity,
yet leaves many things undone.
The moral person will act out of duty,
and when no one will respond
will roll up his sleeves and use force.
.
When the Tao is forgotten, there is righteousness.
When righteousness is forgotten, there is morality.
When morality is forgotten, there is the law.
The law is the husk of faith,
and trust is the beginning of chaos.
.
Our basic understandings are not from the Tao
because they come from the depths of our misunderstanding.
The master abides in the fruit and not in the husk.
She dwells in the Tao,
and not with the things that hide it.
This is how she increases in wisdom.
.
~ Tao Teh Ching, by Lao Tzu

Drink your tea slowly

.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
– slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.


~ Thich Nhat Hanh

.

I will not leave you.

You worry that I will leave you.

I will not leave you.

Only strangers travel.

Owning everything,

I have no where to go.

~Leonard Cohen

Thoreau's Journal

.

Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation. We hear of cow commons and ministerial lots, but we want men-commons and lay lots, inalienable forever. Let us keep the New World new, preserve all the advantages of living in the country. There is meadow and pasture and wood-lot for the town’s poor. Why not a forest and huckleberry field for the town’s rich? All Walden Wood might have been preserved for our park forever, with Walden in its midst, and the Easterbrooks Country, an unoccupied area of some four square miles, might have been our huckleberry-field. If any owners of these tracts are about to leave the world without natural heirs who need or deserve to be specially remembered, they will do wisely to abandon their possession to all, and not will them to some individual who perhaps has enough already. As some give to Harvard College or another institution, why might not another give a forest or huckleberry-field to Concord? A town is an institution which deserves to be remembered. We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters, and our schoolhouse is the universe. To attend chiefly to the desk or schoolhouse while we neglect the scenery in which it is placed is absurd. If we do not look out we shall find our fine schoolhouse standing in a cow-yard at last.

~ Henry David Thoreau

moving ahead

Once more my deeper life goes on with more strength,

as if the banks through which it moves had widened out.

Trees and stones seem more like me each day,

and the paintings I see seem more seen into:

with my senses, as with the birds, I climb

into the windy heaven out of the oak,

and in the ponds broken off from the blue sky

my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

translation by Robert Bly

To be great be entire

.

To be great be entire:

Of what is yours nothing 

exaggerate or exclude

Be whole in each thing. Put all that you are

Into the least you do

Like that on each place the whole moon

Shines for she lives aloft.

.

~ Fernando Pessoa

.

Her face was in a bed of hair

.

Her face was in a bed of hair,

Like flowers in a plot-

Her hand was whiter than the sperm

That feeds the sacred light.

Her tongue more tender than the tune

That totters in the leaves-

Who hears may be incredulous,

Who witnesses, believes.

.

~ Emily Dickinson

.

the cure

.

Love is the cure,
for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.


.


~ Rumi

 

 

 

 

here is a smile and a gentleness

There is a smile and a gentleness

inside. When I learned the name

 

and address of that, I went to where

you sell perfume. I begged you not

 

to trouble me so with longing. Come

out and play! Flirt more naturally.

 

Teach me how to kiss. On the ground

a spread blanket, flame that's caught

 

and burning well, cumin seeds browning,

I am inside all of this with my soul.

 

 

 

 

~ Rumi

all which isn't singing is mere talking

.
all which isn't singing is mere talking
and all talking's talking to oneself
(whether that oneself be sought or seeking
master or disciple sheep or wolf)
.
gush to it as diety or devil
-toss in sobs and reasons threats and smiles
name it cruel fair or blessed evil-
it is you (ne i)nobody else
.
drive dumb mankind dizzy with haranguing
-you are deafened every mother's son-
all is merely talk which isn't singing
and all talking's to oneself alone
.
but the very song of(as mountains
feel and lovers)singing is silence
.
~ e.e.cummings


.

From the Wizard of Oz

.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high.
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
Someday I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far Behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops,
Away above the chimney tops.
That's where you'll find me.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow,
Why then - oh, why can't I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow,
Why, oh, why can't I?

~ music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg

-click title to hear the song

into the Great Circle inside of You.

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
.
~ Hafiz

it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
How should we be able to forget about those ancient myths 

that are at the beginning of all peoples, 

the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; 

perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses 

who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.

Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being

 something helpless that wants help from us.

 
So you must not be frightened...if a sadness rises up before you

 larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness,

 like light and cloud shadow, passes over your hands

 and over all that you do. You must think that something 

is taking place in you, that life has not forgotten you,

 that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.

 

 

 

 
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

.

It is too clear and so it is hard to see.
A fool once searched for fire with a lighted lantern.
Had he known what fire was,
He could have cooked his rice much sooner.
~ Mumon

.

in conversation with David Sylvester

.

You see, all art has now become completely a game by which man distracts himself; and you may say it has always been like that, but now it's entirely a game. And I think that is the way things have changed, and what is fascinating now is that it's going to become much more difficult for the artist, because he really must deepen the game to be any good at all.

.

~ Francis Bacon 

.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious

.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man...
.
~ Albert Einstein, 1931


.

The flower, the sky, your beloved

.

"The flower, the sky, your beloved, 
can only be found in the present moment."
...

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

-click the title for more

Bogart and Bacall in 'To Have and To Have Not'

.
Slim: Who was the girl, Steve?
Harry: What girl?
Slim: The one that left you with such a high opinion of women? She must have been quite a gal. You think I lied to you about this don't you? Well it just happens there's thirty-odd dollars here. Not enough for boat fare, or any other kind of fare. Just enough for me to say "No" if I feel like it, and you can have it if you want it... you wouldn't take anything from anybody would you? You know Steve, you're not very hard to figure. Only at times. Sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say. Most of the time. The other times ... the other times you're just a stinker. (she kisses him)
Harry: What'd you do that for?
Slim: Been wondering if I'd like it.
Harry: What's your decision?
Slim: I don't know yet. (she kisses him again)
Slim: It's even better when you help. Uhh... sure you won't change your mind about this? This belongs to me, and so do my lips, I don't see any difference ... OK You know you don't have act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not with me. Ohh, maybe just whistle. You remember how to whistle don't you? Just put your lips together... and blow.
(she exits. Harry smiles to himself and then whistles)
.
~ from the novel by Ernest Hemingway, directed by Howard Hawks, 1944


.-click the title