Hesitation: An Assay

.

.

Sometimes only a slowing

so momentary it can scarcely be seen -

as if a dog

chasing something large and swift and important,

were distracted by the white tremor of an overhead moth.

.

Other times a full lifetime tentative, lost.

.

The line of the roof in a child's crayoned drawing

can show a hesitation almost fatal.

The rain

comes to it hard or less hard,

knowing nothing of hesitations's rake-toothed debate

.

And the two lovers

now concealed around the corner?

They fool no one, not even themselves,

pausing in their own shadows outside a locked door.

.

If pleasure requires prolonging, then these lovers.

.

Yet slowness alone is not to be confused

with the scent of the plum tree just before it opens.

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from After


.

our own limits transgressed

We need the tonic of wildness, 

to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow hen lurk, 

and hear the booming of the snipe; 

to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder 

and more solitary fowl builds her nest, 

and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.  

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, 

we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, 

that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed 

by us because it is unfathomable. 

We can never have enough of nature.  

We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, 

vast and titanic features, the seacoast with its wrecks, 

the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, 

the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets.

We need to witness our own limits transgressed, 

and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

  

~ Thoreau

from Walden, "Spring," 1854

photo above by Kathleen Connally

.

True freedom

.

.

True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such

a way as if you had completely chosen whatever

you feel or experience at this moment.

This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering.

Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no.

If you had not suffered as you have, 

there would be no depth to you as a human being, 

no humility, no compassion.

You would not be reading this now. 

Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, 

and then comes a point when it has served its purpose.

Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.

.

~ Eckhart Tolle

.

I am fishing with the one who made the river

.

.

When I go out on the water at night, and as I bait hooks, watch Cassiopeia, rising in the eastern sky, draw up her fishingline, Perseus with the misty Pleiads as bait and bright Venus caught, and then all grow dim in the faint beginning light of dawn, then I feel that I am fishing with the one who made the river and set her flowing.  I feel its length and sinuous flowing, fed by swift streams in the wooded eastern mountains; and somewhere, through a country unknown to me except by hearsay, past the mouths of new rivers and towns known only by name, it will at last enter an ocean and lose its identity, as I will too, at the end of my devious flowing.

.

~ Harlan Hubbard

from Shantyboat Journal

edited by Don Wallis

dog still barking at midnight

.

.

It has come to this:

three ants, seemingly separate, seemingly aimless,

wandering on a shelf.

.

They've appeared and disappeared for days between jars and bottles.

Luckless, they move without pausing.

.

A single breath-puff could send any one to the floor.

How distant they must be from the nest -

yet none consults with another,

none turns to the others for reassurance or warmth.

.

In their cold bodies: calcium, carbons, a trace of nickel.

.

Inexhaustible solitude, how did you come so far

to waver on the slim antennae of these my sisters?

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

.

the promise

.

.

Mysteriously they entered, those few minutes.

Mysteriously, they left.

As if the great dog of confusion guarding my heart,

who is always sleepless, suddenly slept.

It was not any awakening of the large, not so much as that,

only a stepping back from the petty.

I gazed at the range of blue mountains,

I drank from the stream.  Tossed in a small stone from the bank.

Whatever direction the fates of my life might travel, I trusted.

Even the greedy direction, even the grieving, trusted.

There was nothing left to be saved from, bliss nor danger.

The dogs tail wagged a little in his dream.

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from After

photo by shreve stockton

.

That Time of Year thou mayst in me Behold

.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold 

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day 

As after sunset fadeth in the west, 

Which by and by black night doth take away, 

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire 

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 

As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. 

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, 

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

.

~ William Shakespeare

sonnet LXXIII

woman in red coat

.

Some questions cannot be answered.

They become familiar weights in the hand,

round stones pulled from the pocket,

unyielding and cool.

Your fingers travel their surfaces,

lose themselves finally

in the braille of the durable world.

Look out of any window, it's the same --

the yellow leaves, the wintering light.

A truck passes, piled deep in cut wood.

A woman, in a red wool coat,

sees you watching and quickly looks away.

.

~ Jane Hirshfield 

from Of Gravity and Angels

.

Let life happen

.

For one human being to love another; 

that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, 

the ultimate, the last test and proof, 

the work for which all other work is but preparation. 

.

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: 

that each protects the solitude of the other. 

This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: 

the more they give, the more they possess.

.

There are no classes in life for beginners; 

right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.

.

Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; 

the more strongly you cultivate this belief, 

the more will reality and the world go forth from it. 

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; 

blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; 

for the Creator, there is no poverty.

.

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. 

The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, 

for it is experience of receiving and bearing.

.

The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens. 

Let life happen to you. 

Believe me: life is in the right, always.

.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

thanks to http://paulocoelhoblog.com/

.

just now

.

In the morning as the storm begins to blow away

the clear sky appears for a moment and it seems to me

that there has been something simpler than I could ever believe

simpler than I could have begun to find words for

not patient not even waiting no more hidden

than the air itself that became part of me for a while

with every breath and remained with me unnoticed

something that was here unnamed unknown in the days

and the nights not separate from them

not separate from them as they came and were gone

it must have been here neither early nor late then

by what name can I address it now holding out my thanks

.

~ W.S. Merwin
from The Pupil
.

.

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

.

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

.