Saturday, March 10, 2012

there is






There is a beginning. 
There is no beginning of that beginning. 
There is no beginning of that no beginning of beginning. 

There is something. 
There is nothing. 
There is something before the beginning of something and nothing, 
and something before that. 

Suddenly there is something and nothing. 
But between something and nothing, 
I still don't really know which is something and which is nothing. 

Now, I've just said something, 
but I don't really know whether I've said anything or not.





~ Chuang Tzu
with thanks to whiskey river





Thursday, March 8, 2012

arabic coffee








~ Naomi Shihab Nye




after drinking all night with a friend







~ Robert Bly






Wednesday, March 7, 2012

garden song










~ David Mallett
performed by Pete Seeger



the walls of Layla






I pass by these walls, the walls of Layla
And I kiss this wall and that wall
It’s not Love of the houses that has taken my heart
But of the One who dwells in those houses




~ Nizami Ganjavi
from The Legend of
Layli and Madjnun
sculpture by Michael Alfano


leaders?




1717



The best leaders are those the people hardly know exist.
The next best is a leader who is loved and praised.
Next comes the one who is feared.
The worst one is the leader that is despised.

If you don't trust the people,
they will become untrustworthy.

The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly.
When she has accomplished her task,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!"




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




runner








It is hard to unlatch a day
from noun and story.

Breath pours
like water
out of a small bowl into a large.

One says,
Quicker.

Another says,
Listen, runner—
underwater things are fragrant to fish.





~ Jane Hirshfield




Saturday, March 3, 2012

in the heart





In the heart of the night, 
The moonlight framing
A small boat drifting,
Tossed not by the waves
Nor swayed by the breeze.



~ Dogen
from The Zen Poetry of Dogen




moonlight sonata








Wilhelm Kempff plays Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata mvt. 1
published on this date in 1802

Friday, March 2, 2012

within this tree




Within this tree
another tree
inhabits the same body;
within this stone
another stone rests,
its many shades of grey
the same,
its identical
surface and weight.
And within my body,
another body,
whose history, waiting,
sings: there is no other body,
it sings,
there is no other world.










~ Jane Hirshfield
from The October Palace
art by tara turner





Thursday, March 1, 2012

death could come!





The musician's finger do not hurry at all as they climb up the Jacob's Ladder of her bass.   They are not accomplishing tasks laid down by others, but have agreed to luminous labors suggested - by whom?  The fingers go higher. The Cantata says: "Death is not far off... Death could come!"  Men's and women's voices all around cry out:  "It is the ancient law!"

Now we sense the odor of roots, of partridge berries, masses of leaves that give up their lives without complaining.

The musician's fingers appear from the house of the hand-back, as if the hand were a being in itself, with its own slow joys, and its own cottage where it lives, sleeping long on winter nights.

Now the beings run up the mountain path; they are goats that do a firm dance, one foot down, then the other, many fields and mountain paths with goats on them leaping...And we who listen, are crossing a mountain at dusk. We walk a long time through the moor in the dark, at last we see a hut with one lamp lit...




~ Robert Bly
from Reaching Out to the World
(For Susan Mathews Allard and Her Double Bass)
art by picasso


Friday, February 24, 2012

complete unknowing





Happy Birthday, Jane

Awareness and self-consciousness are delicate matters. Trying to examine more deeply what poems are and how they work has informed my life and brought me great joy. I don't think that attentiveness ever diminishes experience. There are times, however, when you don't want to be self-conscious. One is while writing the first draft of a new poem. At that stage too much consciousness is limiting and therefore damaging. It can wall off the permeable, the mysterious, everything you don't already know. When I write, I don't know what is going to emerge. I begin in a condition of complete unknowing, an utter nakedness of concept or goal. A word appears, another word appears, an image. It is a moving into mystery. Everything I am and know and have lived goes into a poem. I hope I'll never be governed by theoretical knowledge when I set out to write. Poems are born in part from the history and culture of other poems, but in writing I hope to learn a new thing, something fresh about what's going on in that moment, in my own life and in the world. Craft consciousness is essential to the finished poem, but comes later.




~ Jane Hirshfield
 from a 1997 Atlantic Monthly interview



straw dogs






Heaven and Earth are impartial;
they treat all of creation as straw dogs.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she treats everyone like a straw dog.

The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows;
it is empty, yet has not lost its power.
The more it is used, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you comprehend.

It is better not to speak of things you do not understand.





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


Thursday, February 23, 2012

words do not come






words do not come
there is no need for profound utterances or
deep truths
here is an ordinary evening
why spoil it with dramatic overstatement

the silence amidst the noise
the gem at the core 
of every experience
is polished by simple attention
into shining magnificence





~ Nirmala
from Gifts with no Giver: A Love affair with Truth




the tower of spirit






The spirit has an impregnable tower
Which no danger can disturb
As long as the tower is guarded
By the invisible Protector
Who acts unconsciously, and whose actions
Go astray when they become deliberate,
Reflexive, and intentional.

The unconsciousness
And entire sincerity of Tao
Are disturbed by any effort
At self-conscious demonstration.
All such demonstrations
Are lies.

When one displays himself
In this ambiguous way
The world outside storms in 
And imprisons him.

He is no longer protected 
By the sincerity of Tao.
Each now act
Is a new failure.

If his acts are done in public, 
In broad daylight,
He will be punished by men.
If they are done in private
And in secret,
They will be punished
By spirits.

Let each one understand 
The meaning of sincerity
And guard against display!

He will be at peace
With men and spirits
And will act rightly, unseen,
In his own solitude,
In the tower of his spirit.



~ Chuang Tzu
translation by Thomas Merton
sketch by Thomas Merton