Saturday, February 11, 2012

sleep





I love to lie down weary
under the stalk of sleep
growing slowly out of my head,
the dark leaves meshing.



~ Wendell Berry
from Farming Poems
art Rembrandt



the waking






I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.









~ Theodore Roethke









~ Kurt Elling











Friday, February 10, 2012

overly bold



727272



When people become overly bold,
then disaster will soon arrive.

Do not meddle with people's livelihoods;
if you respect them, they will in turn respect you.

Therefore, the Master knows herself but is 
not arrogant.
She loves herself but also loves others.
This is how she is able to make appropriate choices.





~ Lao Tzu
from the Tao Te Ching
translation by j.h.mcdonald








Thursday, February 9, 2012

a one-man revolution







I bid you to a one-man revolution -
The only revolution that is coming.
...
We're too unseparate.  And going home
From company means coming to our senses.




~ Robert Frost
from Building Soil
art by Frida Kahlo




should I






Should I leave this burning house
of ceaseless thought
and taste the pure rain's
single truth
falling upon my skin?





~ Izumi Shikibu
from The Ink Dark Moon
translations by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani





Wednesday, February 8, 2012

quiet and secret






Keep quiet and secret with your soul-work.
Don’t worry so much about your body.
God sewed that robe. Leave it as it is.
Be more deeply courageous.
Change your soul.





~ Attar of Nishapur (1145-1221)
translated by Coleman Barks
photo by eliot porter



Attar's Tomb - photo by Nik Pendaar



Tuesday, February 7, 2012

what things want







You have to let things
Occupy their own space.
This room is small,
But the green settee

Likes to be here.
The big marsh reeds,
Crowding out the slough,
Find the world good.

You have to let things
Be as they are.
Who knows which of us
Deserves the world more?





~ Robert Bly
photo by Shreve Stockton





not the flower






As I dig for wild orchids
in the autumn fields,
it is the deeply-bedded root
that I desire,
not the flower.




~ Izumi Shikibu
from The Ink Dark Moon







man born in tao





Fishes are born in water
Man is born in Tao.
If fishes, born in water,
Seek the deep shadow
Of pond and pool,
All their needs 
Are satisfied.
If man, born in Tao,
Sinks into the deep shadow
Of non-action
To forget aggression and concern,
He lacks nothing
His life is secure.

Moral: "All the fish needs
Is to get lost in water.
All man needs is to get lost
In Tao."







~ Chuang Tzu
translation by Thomas Merton
art by Bada Shanren 
who lived during the beginning of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911)



the sorrel filly




The songs of small birds fade away
into the bushes after sundown,
the air dry, sweet with goldenrod.
Beside the path, suddenly, bright asters
flare in the dusk.  The aged voices
of a few crickets thread the silence.
It is a quiet I love, though my life
too often drives me through it deaf,
Busy with cost and losses, I waste
the time I have to be here - a time
blessed beyond my deserts, as I know,
if only I would keep aware.  The leaves
rest in the air, perfectly still,
I would like them to rest in my mind
as still, as simply spaced.  As I approach,
the sorrel filly looks up from her grazing,
poised there, light on the slope
as a young apple tree.  A week ago
I took her away to sell, and failed
to get my price, and brought her home 
again.  Now in the quiet I stand
and look at her a long time, glad
to have recovered what is lost
in the exchange of something for money.




~ Wendell Berry
from Farming Poems
photo from hopes creek ranch





some like poetry






Some--
that means not all.
Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting the schools, where one must,
and the poets themselves, there will be perhaps two in a thousand.
Like--
but one also likes chicken noodle soup,
one likes compliments and the color blue, one likes an old scarf,
one likes to prove one's point,
one likes to pet a dog.
Poetry--
but what sort of thing is poetry?
More than one shaky answer
has been given to this question.
But I do not know and do not know and clutch on to it,
as to a saving bannister.





~ Wislawa Szymborska
with thanks to parabola

Original painting by
Caspar David Friedrich
Digital adaption by 
Simon Max Bannister 2012




Monday, February 6, 2012

the yellow dot











God does what she wants. She has very large
Tractors. She lives at night in the sewing room
Doing stitchery. Then chunks of land at mid-
Sea disappear. The husband knows that his wife
Is still breathing. God has arranged the open
Grave. The grave is not what we want,
But to God it's a tiny hole, and he has 
The needle, draws thread through it, and soon
A nice pattern appears. The husband cries,
"Don't let her die!" But God says, "I
Need a yellow dot here, near the mailbox."

The husband is angry. But the turbulent ocean
Is like a chicken scratching for seeds. It doesn't
Mean anything, and the chicken's claws will tear
A Rembrandt drawing if you put it down.



~ Robert Bly
in memory of Jane Kenyon-
from Morning Poems
art by georgia o'keeffe


Sunday, February 5, 2012

to know the dark





To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.




~ Wendell Berry
from Farming - A Handbook




Friday, February 3, 2012

feasts of wisdom





I was seeking a cure for my trouble;
My trouble became my cure.
I was seeking a proof of my origin;
My origin became my proof.

I was looking to the right and the left
So that I could see the face of the Beloved.
I was searching outside,
But the Soul was within that very soul.



~  Niyazi Misri (1616 - 1694)
translation by Walter Feldman







temporal affections





Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. 
There is no greater obstacle to God than time: 
and not only time but temporalities, 
not only temporal things but temporal affections, 
not only temporal affections 
but the very taint and smell of time. 




~  Meister Eckhart
art by dali