Wednesday, September 22, 2010

being separated




.
.
Listen to the story told by the reed, 
of being separated. 
.
"Since I was cut from the reedbed, 
I have made this crying sound. 
.
Anyone apart from someone he loves 
understands what I say. 
.
Anyone pulled from a source 
longs to go back. 
.
At any gathering I am there, 
mingling in the laughing and grieving, 
.
a friend to each, but few 
will hear the secrets hidden 
.
within the notes. No ears for that. 
Body flowing out of spirit, 
.
spirit up from body: no concealing 
that mixing. But it's not given us 
.
to see the soul. The reed flute 
is fire, not wind. Be that empty." 
.
Hear the love fire tangled 
in the reed notes, as bewilderment 
.
melts into wine. The reed is a friend 
to all who want the fabric torn 
.
and drawn away. The reed is hurt 
and salve combining. Intimacy 
.
and longing for intimacy, one 
song. A disastrous surrender 
.
and a fine love, together. The one 
who secretly hears this is senseless. 
.
A tongue has one customer, the ear. 
A sugarcane flute has such effect 
.
because it was able to make sugar 
in the reedbed. The sound it makes 
.
is for everyone. Days full of wanting, 
let them go by without worrying 
.
that they do. Stay where you are 
inside such a pure, hollow note. 
.
Every thirst gets satisfied except 
that of these fish, the mystics, 
.
who swim a vast ocean of grace 
still somehow longing for it! 
.
No one lives in that without 
being nourished every day. 
.
But if someone doesn't want to hear 
the song of the reed flute
.
it's best to cut conversation 
short, say good-bye, and leave.
.
~ Rumi
translation by Coleman Barks
from The essential Rumi

.

a strange thing is loneliness




.
.
What a strange thing is loneliness, and how frightening it is! We never allow ourselves to get too close to it; and if by chance we do, we quickly run away from it. We will do anything to escape from loneliness, to cover it up. Our conscious and unconscious preoccupation seems to be to avoid it or to overcome it. Avoiding and overcoming loneliness are equally futile; though suppressed or neglected, the pain, the problem, is still there. You may lose yourself in a crowd, and yet be utterly lonely; you may be intensely active, but loneliness silently creeps upon you; put the book down, and it is there. Amusements and drinks cannot drown loneliness; you may temporarily evade it, but when the laughter and the effects of alcohol are over, the fear of loneliness returns. You may be ambitious and successful, you may have vast power over others, you may be rich in knowledge, you may worship and forget yourself in the rigmarole of rituals; but do what you will, the ache of loneliness continues. You may exist only for your son, for the Master, for the expression of your talent; but like the darkness, loneliness covers you. You may love or hate, escape from it according to your temperament and psychological demands; but loneliness is there, waiting and watching, withdrawing only to approach again.
.
J. Krishnamurti
from his Commentaries on Living Series I
.

to waiting


.
.
You spend so much of your time
expecting to become
someone else
always someone 
who will be different 
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be 
at last has come
and who has been
met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you
.
meanwhile in your life
you hardly notice
the world around you
lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent
on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself
.
with whom as you
recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long
.
W.S. Merwin
from Present Company
art by Picasso
.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

to the happy few


.
.
Do you know who you are
.
O you forever listed
under some other heading
when you are listed at all
.
You whose addresses
when you have them 
are never sold except
for another reason
something else that is
supposed to identify you
.
who carry no card
stating that you are -
what would it say you were
to someone turning it over
looking perhaps for
a date or for
anything to go by
.
you with no secret handshake
no proof of membership
no way to prove such a thing
even to yourselves
.
you without a word
of explanation
and only yourselves
as evidence
.
~ W.S. Merwin
from Present Company
photo by edmund teske
.

Where is he now





Where is he now, who leaving wealth behind
grew so bold in poverty
that he threw off his clothes before the bishop
and stood naked in the square?

The most inward and loving of all,
he came forth like a new beginning,
the brown-robed brother of your nightingales,
with his wonder and goodwill
and delight in Earth...




~ Rainer Maria Rilke
III,33, The book of Poverty and Death
translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

.

Monday, September 20, 2010

each our own death




God, give us each our own death,
the dying that proceeds
from each of our lives:

the way we loved,
the meanings we made,
our need.

III,6



For we are only the rind and the leaf,

The great death, that each of us carries inside,
is the fruit.

Everything enfolds it.

III,7




~ Rainer Maria Rilke
  The Book of Poverty and Death
translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

Sunday, September 19, 2010

can't see the path or any distance



.
It feels as though I make my way 
through massive rock
like a vain of ore
alone, encased.

I am so deep inside it
I can't see the path or any distance:
everything us close
and everything closing in on me
has turned to stone.

Since I still don't know enough about pain,
this terrible darkness makes me small.
If it's you, though -

press down hard on me, break in
that I may know the weight of your hand,
and you, the fullness of my cry.




Rainer Maria Rilke
The Book of Poverty and Death III,1
translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
(See interview with Joanna Macy)


he keeps on going


.
.
Sometimes a man rises from the supper table
and goes outside.  And he keeps on going
because somewhere to the east there's a church.
His children bless his name as if he were dead.
.
Another man stays at home until he dies,
stays with plates and glasses.
So then it is his children who go out
into the world, seeking the church that he forgot.
.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
from The Book of Pilgrimage, II,19
.


Friday, September 17, 2010

The ocean moves


.
.
The ocean moves, not because it wishes to move 
or because it knows that it is wise or good: 
it moves involuntarily, unconscious of movement.  
It is thus that you also will return to Tao, 
and when you have returned, you will not know it, 
because you yourself would have become Tao.
.
~ Wu Wei
.

The past, the future... sands blown by the wind





.
Neither time nor space exists for the man who knows the eternal.

Space and time are real for the man who is yet imperfect and space is divided for him into dimensions, time into past, present and future. He looks behind him and sees his birth, his acquisitions, all that he has rejected. That past is being continually modified by the future which is ever being added to it. From the past man turns his eyes to the future where death, the unknown, the darkness, the mystery, await him.
.
Fascinated by these he can no longer detach himself from them. The mystery of the future holds for him the fulfillment of all his desires, which the past has denied to him, and in his dreams he flies to that brilliant horizon where happiness must exist, where he must seek it.
.
No one will ever pierce the infinite mystery of the future - impenetrable in its evanescent illusion - neither magician, prophet nor God! But on the contrary it will be the mystery which will engulf man, which will not let him escape, which will break the mainspring of his life.
.
Life is not to be approached through the past, nor through the mirage of the future. Life cannot be approached through intermediaries, nor conquered for another.
.
That discovery can only be made in the immediate present - by the individual for himself and not for others - by the individual who has become the eternal "I". That eternal "I" is created by the perfection of the self - perfection in which all things are contained, even human imperfections. Man, not yet having achieved that condition of life in the present, lives in the past which he regrets, lives in the future where he
hopes, but never in the present which he ignores. This is the case with all men.
.
Balanced between the past and the future, the "I" is poised as a tiger ready to spring, as an eagle ready to fly, as the bow at the moment of releasing the arrow.
.
This moment of equilibrium, of high tension, is "creation." It is the fullness of all life, it is immortality.
.
The wind of the desert sweeps away all trace of the traveller.
.
The sole imprint is the footstep of the present. The past, the future... sands blown by the wind.
.
~ J. Krishnamurti
taken from: From Darkness to Light
1929
.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

They dwell in lowly spots





.
The best, like water, 
Benefit all and do not compete. 
They dwell in lowly spots that everyone else scorns. 
Putting others before themselves, 
They find themselves in the foremost place 
And come very near to the Tao. 
.
~ Lao Tzu
.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A day comes



.
A day comes
when the mouth grows tired
of saying "I."
.
Yet it is occupied
still by a self which must speak.
Which still desires,
is curious.
Which believes it has also a right.
.
What to do?
The tongue consults with the teeth
it knows will survive
both mouth and self,
.
which grin - it is their natural pose -
and say nothing.
.
~ Jane Hirshfield
from "After"
.

Time became as smooth and even as the current


.
.
I worked too hard and furiously about the boat last week, trying to get the interior more or less complete, so as to get at the construction of a johnboat.  But I suddenly came to myself, realizing that none of it mattered a great deal, and I was losing much by my absorption in it.  We are really comfortable here, with the chores inside and out easy enough to do.  All that we plan to do will make for added comfort, convenience and neatness, but will come in time, and leisure must be had for other activities and for just living, or we will miss our way.
.
Time became as smooth and even as the current outside our windows, and we began to realize our true aims in coming to the river... 
I had no theories to prove.
.
~ Harlan Hubbard 
bookcover art by the author
.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Tear: An Assay




A great philosopher is born, walks his lifetime's allotment of footsteps, and dies, but while he is living he has the demeanor and body and voice of a great clown.   Each of his propositions is heard, but met with snorts, guffaws, and the wiping of tears of laughter from the eyes.  Or perhaps it is the reverse: A great comic is born, walks the earth, and dies.  But her demeanor and body and voice are such that people listen gravely, they nod in silence at her words, are moved to weeping by the feelings her thoughts cause to rise.  The composition to tears of laughter and tears of grief is not, it seems, the same, though the tongue cannot tell this.  Different still the tears of outrage, or the tears that come from a misplace dust mote, errant eyelash, of flake of soot.  Each brought to the earth a great if different pleasure.  Each died unsatisfied and angry, though this too is not perceived.   And where does the mistake lie, if a mistake is granted at all?  In the person who refuses an inescapable fate, or in those who shed at his works their tears of subtly erroneous composition?



~ Jane Hirshfield
art by aiden-ivanov
.

some wholly communal thing




.

Happy who know that behind all speeches
still the unspeakable lies;
that it's from there that greatness reaches
us in the form we prize!

Trusting not to the diversely fashioned
bridges of difference we outfling:
so that we gaze out of every impassioned
joy at some wholly communal thing.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke