every step my home

Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm,

Without looking for the traces I may have left;

A cuckoo's song beckons me to return home,

Hearing this, I tilt my head to see

Who has told me to turn back;

But do not ask me where I am going,

As I travel in this limitless world,

Where every step I take is my home.

~ Dogen

from the Zen Poetry of Dogen

art by Vladimir Kostetsky

the myth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So the myth in our society is that people are competitive by nature

 and that they are individualistic and that they're selfish. 

 

The real reality is quite the opposite. We have certain human needs. 

The only way that you can talk about human nature concretely is by recognizing

 that there are certain human needs. We have a human need for companionship

 and for close contact, to be loved, to be attached to, to be accepted, 

to be seen, to be received for who we are. 

 

If those needs are met, we develop into people who are compassionate and cooperative

 and who have empathy for other people. So . . . the opposite,

that we often see in our society, is in fact, a distortion of human nature

 precisely because so few people have their needs met.

 

 

 
 ~ Gabor Maté

 with thanks to whiskey river

 

 

 

the sympathies of the long married

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh well, let's go on eating the grains of eternity.
What do we care about improvements in travel?
Angels sometimes cross the river on old turtles.

Shall we worry about who gets left behind?
That one bird flying through the clouds is enough.
Your sweet face at the door of the house is enough.

The two farm horses stubbornly pull the wagon.
The mad crows carry away the tablecloth.
Most of the time, we live through the night.

Let's not drive the wild angels from our door.
Maybe the mad fields of grain will move.
Maybe the troubled rocks will learn to walk.

It's all right if we're troubled by the night.
It's all right if we can't recall our own name.
It's all right if this rough music keeps on playing.

I've given up worrying about men living alone.
I do worry about the couple who live next door.
Some words heard through the screen door are enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 ~  Robert Bly

from Talking into the ear of a Donkey

with thanks to whiskey river

 

 

 

where the battle did not happen

This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed—or were killed—on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.

~  William Stafford

wildly in love

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They are always kissing, they can't
control themselves.

It is not possible
that any creature can have greater instincts
and perceptions than the
mature human
mind.

God
ripened me.
So I see it is true:
all objects in existence are
wildly in
love. 

 

 

 

~ Meister Eckhart

.

the inward world

Riding on the inner side of the blackbird's

Wings, I feel the long

Warm flight to the sea;

Dark, black in the trees at night.

Along the railroad tracks

In men's minds wild roses grow.

Lingering as ripe black olives

I go down the stairs of the little leaves,

To the floating continent

Where men forget their bodies,

Searching for the tiny

Grain of sand behind their eyes.

~ William Duffy

Introductory notes by Robert Bly 

to The Lion’s Tail and Eyes, Poems written out of laziness and silence.

“One purpose of poetry is to forget about what you know, 

and think about what you don’t know. 

There is an old idea that only by leaving the body can a man think.

 Such a leaving concerns the body of knowledge as well as the physical body.

 After all, as Montale says, if the purpose of poetry lay in making oneself understood, 

there would be no purpose in writing it.”……. 

“The fundamental world of poetry…..is the inward world. 

The poem expresses what we are just beginning to think,

 thoughts we have not yet thought. The poem must catch these thoughts alive,

 holding them in language that is also alive, flexible and animal-alike as they. 

The poem with images is therefore like a lion about to come into existence.

 A person meets the poem among trees at night. On the path in front of him,

 he sees a lion who does not know he is there. The lion is changing 

from his old ancient substance back into a visible body.

 So far the tip of the tail, the ears, the eyes,

 and perhaps a paw or two have come.”

poem in three parts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 1.

 

Oh, on an early morning I think I shall live forever!

I am wrapped in my joyful flesh,

As the grass is wrapped in its clouds of green.

 

 

2.

 

Rising from a bed, where I dreamt

Of long rides past castles and hot coals,

The sun lies happily on my knees;

I have suffered and survived the night,

Bathed in dark water, like any blade of grass.

 

3.

 

The strong leaves of the box-elder tree,

Plunging in the wind, call us to disappear

Into the wilds of the universe,

Where we shall sit at the foot of a plant,

And live forever, like the dust.

 

 

 

 

~ Robert Bly

from  Silence in the Snowy Fields

 

 

 

 

 

a stricken deer that left the herd

I WAS a stricken deer, that left the herd
Long since; with many an arrow deep infixt
My panting side was charg'd, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.

There was I found by one who had himself
Been hurt by th' archers. In his side he bore,
And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.
With gentle force soliciting the darts,
He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live. 

Since then, with few associates, in remote
And silent woods I wander, far from those
My former partners of the peopled scene;
With few associates, and not wishing more.

Here much I ruminate, as much I may,
With other views of men and manners now
Than once, and others of a life to come.
I see that all are wand'rers, gone astray
Each in his own delusions; they are lost
In chace of fancied happiness, still wooed
And never won. Dream after dream ensues,
And still they dream that they shall still succeed,
And still are disappointed; rings the world
With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind,
And add two-thirds of the remainder half,
And find the total of their hopes and fears
Dreams, empty dreams. The million flit as gay
As if created only like the fly
That spreads his motley wings in th' eye of noon
To sport their season and be seen no more.

~ William Cowper 

 art by Picasso

the people waiting

The ship, solid and black,

enters the clear blackness

of the great harbor.

Quiet and cold.

—The people waiting

are still asleep, dreaming,

and warm, far away and still stretched out in this 

dream, perhaps . . .

How real our watch is, beside the dream

of doubt the others had! How sure it is, compared

to their troubled dream about us!

Quiet. Silence.

Silence which in breaking up at dawn

will speak differently.

~ Juan Ramón Jiménez

 from Lorca and Jiménez: Selected Poems

translation by Robert Bly

art by picasso

half life

We walk through half of our life

as if it were a fever dream

barely touching the ground

our eyes half open

our heart half closed.

Not half knowing who we are 

we watch the ghost of us drift 

from room to room

through friends and lovers

never quite as real as advertised.

Not saying half we mean

or meaning half we say

we dream ourselves

from birth to birth

seeking the true self.

Until the fever breaks

and the heart can not abide

a moment longer

as the rest of us awakens,

summoned from the dream,

not half caring for anything but love.

~ Stephen Levine

from Breaking the Drought

art by Robert Frank Hunter

Bach cello Solo Nr.1, BWV 1007

enter singing

1.

The cloud is free only

to go with the wind.

The rain is free

only in falling.

The water is free only

in its gathering together,

in its downward courses,

in its rising into the air.

2.

In law is rest

if you love the law,

if you enter, singing, into it

as water in its descent.

3.

Or song is truest law,

and you must enter singing;

it has no other entrance.

It is the great chorus

of parts. The only outlawry

is in division.

4.

Whatever is singing

is found, awaiting the return

of whatever is lost.

5.

Meet us in the air

over the water,

sing the swallows.

Meet me, meet me,

the redbird sings,

here here here here.

~ Wendell Berry

photo by Beth Acherman

the truceless wars

 

 

 

 

 

 The truceless wars

among beasts, and among men, are worlds apart.
The pigeon lays down fluttering life to flash
a russet tail. The haddock becomes harp seal,
then polar bear. The squirming termite licked
from a sharp stick awakes to invent tools.
The lamb lies down within the lion, yawns
yellow-fanged, and sleeps. Life struggles to evolve
higher in us, through questioning, toward hope.
But we sow salt. We leave a ground-zero wake
of futurelessness. Take the way a life
devolves from thought to blind mouths in the dust
wasted by semiautomatic fire.
This flesh is foolscap. We think we’re so smart,
but we create nothing, nothing. Nothing.

 

 

 

 

~ Marilyn Nelson

 

 born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of a school teacher

 and a U. S. serviceman, a member of the last graduating class of Tuskegee Airmen. 

She is the author or translatorof more than 20 books and chapbooks for adults

 and children. A professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut,

 Marilyn was Poet Laureate of Connecticut, 2001– 2006, and founding director

 of Soul Mountain Retreat, a writers’ colony, 2004-2010.

 

with thanks to https://onbeing.org

keep yourself at the beginning of the beginning

 

 

 

 

 

Please try to help me go to the joy that is trying
to go to the beautiful helpful helpful beginning
of the beginning of the very trying freedom
that we make our great great great light
that is nothing but the laughter that is
fooling us into believing that we go
to the trash bin that is your life
that become the treasures
that live in the bottom
of the bin that is
your life yes
yes yes
yes –
please
try to dive
down to the
beautiful muck
that helps you get
that the world was made
from the garbage at the bottom
of the universe that was boiling over
with joy that wanted to become you you
you yes yes yes – please try to go to the colors
that kiss you great great great person of the light
that is becoming you you you yes yes – please
try to keep yourself in the bottom of the bin
yes yes – please try to go to the kissing
muck that is very true to your life yes
yes – please try to meet me there
yes yes – please try to bring
your beautiful nothing
there yes yes




~ Hannah Emerson

 author of The Kissing of Kissing

 with thanks to  https://onbeing.org

photo by  John Vermette

 

 

the speech of lovers

 

 

 

True silence is the speech of lovers. . . . 

True silence is a key to the immense and flaming heart of God.

 It is the beginning of a divine courtship that will end only in the immense,

 creative, fruitful, loving silence of final union with the Beloved.

Yes, such silence is holy, a prayer beyond all prayers. 

True silence leads to the final prayer of the constant presence of God,

 to the heights of contemplation, when the soul, finally at peace, 

lives by the will of whom she loves totally, utterly, and completely.

This silence, then, will break forth in a charity that overflows

 in the service of the neighbor without counting the cost. 

 

It will witness to Christ anywhere, always.

 Availability will become delightsome and easy,

 for in each person the soul will see the face of her Love.

 Hospitality will be deep and real, for a silent heart is a loving heart,

 and a loving heart is a hospice to the world. 

 

~ Catherine de Hueck Doherty

 

 a Russian-Canadian Catholic social worker 

and founder of the Madonna House Apostolate.

 A pioneer of social justice and a renowned national speaker,

 Doherty was also a prolific writer of hundreds of articles,

 best-selling author of dozens of books, and a dedicated wife and mother.

 In 1932, she gave up all her possessions, lived among the multitude of poor people

 in downtown Toronto and established Friendship House with its soup kitchen.

 She gave food to them when she had none for herself –