within the heart

The little space within the heart
is as great as the vast 
universe.
The heavens and the earth are there,
and the sun and the moon and
the stars.
Fire and lightning and winds are there,
and all that now is and
all that is not.

 ~ The Upanishads 

would you?

~ Sweet Honey and the Rock

I wish I could speak like music

I wish I could speak like music.

I wish I could put the swaying splendor

Of the fields into words

So that you could hold Truth

Against your body

And dance.

I am trying the best I can

With this crude brush, the tongue, 

To cover you with light

.

I wish I could speak like divine music.

I want to give you the sublime rhythms

Of this earth and the sky's limbs

As they joyously spin and surrender,

Surrender

Against God's luminous breath.

Hafiz Wants you to hold me

Against your precious

Body

And dance

Dance.

–Hafiz

from The Gift: Poems by Hafiz

translations by Daniel Ladinsky

art by van gogh

now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have

now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have

hands, and all the hands have people; and

more each particular person is(my love)

alive than every world can understand

and now you are and i am now and we're

a mystery which will never happen again,

a miracle which has never happened before–

and shining this our now must come to then

our then shall be some darkness during which

fingers are without hands; and i have no

you: and all trees are(any more than each

leafless)its silent in forevering snow

—but never fear(my own, my beautiful

my blossoming)for also then's until

luminous tendril of celestial wish

luminous tendril of celestial wish

(whying diminutive bright deathlessness

to these my not themselves believing eyes

adventuring,enormous nowhere from)

querying affirmation; virginal

immediacy of precision: more

and perfectly more most etereal

silence through twilight's mystery made flesh–

dreamslender exquisite white firstful flame

—new moon! as(by the miracle of your

sweet innocence refuted)clumsy some

dull cowardice called a world vanishes,

teach disappearing also me the keen

illimitable secret of begin 

~ e. e. cummings

to the new year

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

~ W. S. Merwin

from Present Company