Friday, February 18, 2011

I sent my soul






.

I sent my soul into the invisible,
Some letter of that after life to spell.
And by and by my soul returned to me
And answered, I myself am heaven and hell.

.
~ Omar Khayyam 
from The Rubaiyat

.

a symphony



.


.

...Ever since I was a child, I have had the tendency to create a fictitious world around me, to surround myself with friends and acquaintances who never existed. ( I don’t know, of course, if they didn't really exist or if it is me who doesn't exist. On such matters, as in all others, one shouldn't be dogmatic.) Ever since I became aware of the thing that I call self, I can remember with mental precision, the figures, the movements, the character and the history of several fictitious people who were, to me, as visible and mine as those things which we, perhaps abusively, call real life. This tendency, which exists since I realized that I was a self, has always been with me, modifying slightly the kind of music it uses to bewitch me but never altering its manner of bewitching.

.
~ Fernando Pessoa
in a letter to his friend Casais Monteiro

.


My soul is like a hidden orchestra; I do not know which instruments 
grind and play away inside of me, strings and harps, timbales and drums. 
I can only recognize myself as a symphony.

.
from The Book of Disquiet

.

present truth






.

one must be 
in the moment 
for life to 
ever come true 
.
touch the ground 
and be grounded 
find comfort here 
.
living, being, 
breathing, now 
this is where 
it will all happen
.

~ Benjamin Dean
.

ash ode



.


.

When I saw you ahead I ran two blocks 
shouting your name then realizing it wasn't 
you but some alarmed pretender, I went on 
running, shouting now into the sky, 
continuing your fame and luster. Since I've
 been incinerated, I've oft returned to this thought, 
that all things loved are pursued and never caught, 
even as you slept beside me you were flying off. 
At least what's never had can’t be lost, the sieve 
of self stuck with just some larger chunks, jawbone, 
wedding ring, a single repeated dream, 
a lullaby in every elegy, descriptions 
of the sea written in the desert, your broken 
umbrella, me claiming I could fix it.

.
~ Dean Young










Wednesday, February 16, 2011

I died for beauty







.

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
.
He questioned softly why I failed?
“For beauty,” I replied.
“And I for truth, -the two are one;
We brethren are,” he said.
.
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

.
~ Emily Dickinson

.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

da capo







Take the used-up heart like a pebble
and throw it far out.

Soon there is nothing left.
Soon the last ripple exhausts itself
in the weeds.

Returning home, slice onions, carrots, celery.
Glaze them in oil before adding
the lentils, water, and herbs.

Then the roasted chestnuts, a little pepper, the salt.
Finish with goat cheese and parsley. Eat.
You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted.
Begin again the story of your life.



~ Jane Hirshfield
from The Lives of the Heart




unpetalled






.

I unpetalled you, like a rose,
to see your soul,
and I didn't see it.
.
But everything around
--horizons of lands and of seas--
everything, out to the infinite,
was filled with a fragrance,
enormous and alive.


.
~ Juan Ramon Jimenez
translated by Stephen Mitchell

.

in a stolen boat







push off what seemed safe: The fishing dock,
pitch pines, children glazed to sheen
by ruthless summers. Past
 
the jetty, past the past, to open sea--
all violet and green, that choppy path between doom and luck--
Put your back into it, and row.
 
 
 

~ April Bernard

.


Monday, February 14, 2011

this love has no name








Holiness is falling in love with your own self.
This is devotion, and it is not different from love!
What you love you are devoted to and
what you are devoted to you love.

When this love has no object, and goes nowhere
but to itself, it will reveal itself to you in whatever
form you desire; manifest or unmanifest.

If you desire this love don't try to love a particular
person because this love has no personality, no
form, and no name. God is this love.



~ Papaji
from The Truth Is



in a train






.


There has been a light snow.
Dark car tracks move in out of the darkness.
I stare at the train window marked with soft dust.
I have awakened at Missoula Montana utterly happy.

.
~ Robert Bly

.


Sunday, February 13, 2011

hidden things


.

.

After Long Busyness

.
I start out for a walk at last after weeks at the desk.
Moon gone plowing underfoot no stars; not a trace of light!
Suppose a horse were galloping toward me in this open field?
Every day I did not spend in solitude was wasted.
.


.

Watering the Horse

How strange to think of giving up all ambition!
Suddenly I see with such clear eyes
The white flake of snow
That has just fallen in the horse's mane!

.

~ Robert Bly


a life entirely given


.


.

Hell is timely, for Hell is the thought
that Hell will go on, on and on, without end.
Heaven is only present, instantaneous and eternal,
a mayfly, a blue dayflower, a life entirely given,
complete forever in its hour.

.
~ Wendell Berry
from Leavings
photo by magda berny


.


Saturday, February 12, 2011

newness








When we are alone on a starlit night,
 when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn
 descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see 
children in a moment when they are really children, 
when we know love in our own hearts; or when, 
like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog
 land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times
 the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, 
the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make
 themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.


~ Thomas Merton
photo by Kathleen Connally




Thursday, February 10, 2011

One Valley


.
.

Once I thought I could find
where it began
but that never happened
though I went looking for it
time and again
cutting my way past 
empty pools and dry waterfalls
where my dog ran straight up the stone
like an unmoored flame
.
it seemed that the beginning
could not be far then as I went on through the trees 
over the rocks toward the mountain
until I came out in the open
and saw no sign of it
.
where the roaring torrent
raced at one time
to carve farther down
those high walls in the stone
for the silence that I hear now
day and night on its way to the sea
.

~ W.S. Merwin
from The Shadow of Sirius
photo by Ansel Adams

.

a song on the end of the world







On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.




~  Czeslaw Milosz