Keeping Quiet                      

                         ~                        

                          Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.


This one time upon the earth,
let's not speak any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.


It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.


The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.


Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.


What I want shouldn't be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.


If we weren't unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,


if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.


Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I'll go.

-from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon
Translated by Stephen Mitchell


Read this poem in Spanish

Two poems by Doris Kareva

Two poems by Doris Kareva

(translated by Tiina Aleman)

That Which Is Can Be Expressed

I don't know if all roads lead to truth,

but every truth is a road.

The sea is salty from the glad tears

of the rivers, when they meet.

Into that apocalyptic water

I throw all my delusions,

into the clean water dregs of the times,

black pepper into the golden honey.

Suddenly there's lightness. Suddenly it's clear.

Everything is still and separate.

Idleness Is Often Empowering...

Idleness is often empowering,

recreating oneself—

just as the moon gradually

grows full once again,

a battery surely and

steadily recharges,

so everything, everyone

must have time for the self—

for mirth and laziness

time to be human.

P.B. Shelley- Invocation

Decided to try to do a reading of a poem this time, just for fun, just as something never tried before.
T'was a lovely candle-lit night with one of greatest mystical poets of all time. :)

My video tribute to Rabindranath Tagore

Excerpts from Gitanjali.

Music- Vision by Hildegard von Bingen, Richard Souther

Photos from Wikimedia Commons

Full-screen for better viewing quality.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock- T.S.Eliot

What a wonderful reading and a short version of this full poem here-

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the windowpanes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in 
upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .

No!I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown. 

The origin, longing and beauty of love- Pablo Neruda and Stephen Trask

"The memory of you emerges from the night around me. 

The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. 

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. 

It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! 

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. 

Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. 

In you the wars and the flights accumulated. 

From you the wings of the song birds rose. 

You swallowed everything, like distance. 

Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank! 

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss. 

The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse. 

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver, 

turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

 

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded. 

Lost discoverer, in you everything sank! 

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire, 

sadness stunned you, in you everything sank! 

I made the wall of shadow draw back, 

beyond desire and act, I walked on. 

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost, 

I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you. 

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness. 

and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar. 

There was the black solitude of the islands, 

and there, woman of love, your arms took me in. 

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. 

There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle. 

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me 

in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

 

How terrible and brief my desire was to you! 

How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.  

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs, 

still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds. 

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, 

oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. 

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force 

in which we merged and despaired. 

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour. 

And the word scarcely begun on the lips. 

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing, 

and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank! 

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you, 

what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned! 

From billow to billow you still called and sang. 

Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents. 

Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well. 

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, 

lost discoverer, in you everything sank! 

It is the hour of departure, 

the hard cold hour which the night fastens to all the timetables. 

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore. 

Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate. 

Deserted like the wharves at dawn. 

Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands. 

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything. 

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!"

~Pablo Neruda "Song of Despair"

Dogfish - Mary Oliver

Dogfish

Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman's boot,
with a white belly.

If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
which was rough
as a thousand sharpened nails.

And you know
what a smile means,
don't you?

*

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.

*

It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don't know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bodies of three small fish.

*

Also I wanted
to be able to love. And we all know
how that one goes,
don't we?

Slowly

*

the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.

*

You don't want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don't want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it's the same old story - - -
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.

*

And look! look! look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.

*

And probably,
if they don't waste time
looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

Zen reflections

"Second Lesson Of Reflection" by Navitrolla

The mind is like a reflection in a mirror:
Though it is insubstantial, it is not nonexistent.
What is, we have no control over;
And what isn't, is ephemeral
Aren't the esteemed sages
Just regular people who've resolved the matter?

There are changes upon changes.
Once the five components are clearly seen,
The diverse things in the world are joined into one.
How can there be two formless dharma bodies?
Once compulsive desires are eliminated and insight comes,
There are no thoughts about where the promised land may lie.

The will to survive must be killed off.
Once it is killed off, there will be peace of mind.
When the mind integrates this,
An iron ship has been made to float.

-P'ang Yun

Mirror Pond On Mount Taibo In Shanxi

The water and my mind have both settled down
Into perfect stillness.
Sun and moon shine bright in it.
At night I see in the surface
The enormous face of my old familiar moon.
I don't think you've ever met the source of this reflection.
All shrillness fades into the sound of silence.
But now and then a puff of mist floats across the mirror.
It confuses me a little
But not enough to make me forget to forget my cares.

- Hsu Yun

The mind-mirror is clear, so there are no obstacles.
Its brilliance illuminates the universe
To the depths and in every grain of sand.
Multitudinous things of the cosmos
Are all reflected in the mind,
And this full clarity is beyond inner and outer.

- Yoka Genkaku

Actually there isn't a thing
much less any dust to wipe away
who can master this
doesn't need to sit there stiff

- Feng-kan

Looking For Each Other

I have been looking for you, World Honored One,
since I was a little child.
With my first breath, I heard your call,
and began to look for you, Blessed One.
I've walked so many perilous paths,
confronted so many dangers,
endured despair, fear, hopes, and memories.
I've trekked to the farthest regions, immense and wild,
sailed the vast oceans,
traversed the highest summits, lost among the clouds.
I've lain dead, utterly alone,
on the sands of ancient deserts.
I've held in my heart so many tears of stone.

Blessed One, I've dreamed of drinking dewdrops
that sparkle with the light of far-off galaxies.
I've left footprints on celestial mountains
and screamed from the depths of Avici Hell, exhausted, crazed with despair
because I was so hungry, so thirsty.
For millions of lifetimes,
I've longed to see you,
but didn't know where to look.
Yet, I've always felt your presence with a mysterious certainty.

I know that for thousands of lifetimes,
you and I have been one,
and the distance between us is only a flash of thought.
Just yesterday while walking alone,
I saw the old path strewn with Autumn leaves,
and the brilliant moon, hanging over the gate,
suddenly appeared like the image of an old friend.
And all the stars confirmed that you were there!
All night, the rain of compassion continued to fall,
while lightning flashed through my window
and a great storm arose,
as if Earth and Sky were in battle.
Finally in me the rain stopped, the clouds parted.
The moon returned,
shining peacefully, calming Earth and Sky.
Looking into the mirror of the moon, suddenly
I saw myself,
and I saw you smiling, Blessed One.
How strange!

The moon of freedom has returned to me,
everything I thought I had lost.
From that moment on,
and in each moment that followed,
I saw that nothing had gone.
There is nothing that should be restored.
Every flower, every stone, and every leaf recognize me.
Wherever I turn, I see you smiling
the smile of no-birth and no-death.
The smile I received while looking at the mirror of the moon.
I see you sitting there, solid as Mount Meru,
calm as my own breath,
sitting as though no raging fire storm ever occurred,
sitting in complete peace and freedom.
At last I have found you, Blessed One,
and I have found myself.
There I sit.

The deep blue sky,
the snow-capped mountains painted against the horizon,
and the shining red sun sing with joy.
You, Blessed One, are my first love.
The love that is always present, always pure, and freshly new.
And I shall never need a love that will be called “last.”
You are the source of well-being flowing through numberless troubled lives,
the water from your spiritual stream always pure, as it was in the beginning.
You are the source of peace,
solidity, and inner freedom.
You are the Buddha, the Tathagata.
With my one-pointed mind
I vow to nourish your solidity and freedom in myself
so I can offer solidity and freedom to countless others,
now and forever.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Sufi reflections

"First Lesson Of Reflection" by Navitrolla 

Looking For Your Own Face

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.

It's better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.

Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.

What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

- Attar

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the sweet, cold water and the jar that pours.

- Rumi

The Mirror

Your eye has not strength enough
to gaze at the burning sun,
but you can see its burning light
by watching its reflection
mirrored in the water.

So the reflection of Absolute Being
can be viewed in the mirror of Not-Being,
for nonexistence, being opposite Reality,
instantly catches its reflection.

Know the world from end to end is a mirror;
in each atom a hundred suns are concealed.
If you pierce the heart of a single drop of water,
from it will flow a hundred clear oceans;
if you look intently at each speck of dust,
in it you will see a thousand beings.
A gnat in its limbs is like an elephant;
in name a drop of water resembles the Nile.
In the heart of a barleycorn is stored a hundred harvests.
Within a millet-seed a world exists.
In an insects wing is an ocean of life.
A heaven is concealed in the pupil of an eye.
The core at the center of the heart is small,
yet the Lord of both worlds will enter there.

- Mahmud Shabistari

I Was Nothing

When my mind was cleansed of impurities,
like a mirror of its dust and dirt,
I recognized the Self in me:
When I saw Him dwelling in me,
I realized that He was the Everything
and I was nothing.

- Lalla

How we could bridge the gap

The mind creates division

And division is another name

For devastating pain.

The heart creates oneness,

And oneness is another name

For spontaneous joy.

Sri Chinmoy

Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge.

Stephen Levine

Art by Navitrolla : "How We Could Bridge the Gap"

Friendship

And a youth said, "Speak to us of Friendship."

Your friend is your needs answered.

He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.

And he is your board and your fireside.

For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."

And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.

If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?

Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

-  Khalil Gibran

Falling stars

Falling Stars

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

~Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

Caught quite a few falling stars in the past few nights, so this is just a little tribute to the wonderful month of August, the month of the meteor showers in the Perseus constellation, as well as just a great warm time to escape to the countryside like I did, and lie under the open eternity of the sky, travelling, travelling, travelling.... till you are completely in the unknown, in the space without borders, till there is no time, no you... nothing but the vast blinking eyes of the Universe looking back at you, looking from within you to the face of the Divine.

Glen Hansard "Say it to me now"

Scratching at the surface now

And I'm trying hard to work it out

And so much has gone misunderstood

And this mystery only leads to doubt

And I didn't understand

when you reached down to take my hand

And if you have something to say

You better say it now



Cause this is what you've waited for

Your chance to even up the score

And as these shadows fall on me now

I'll win somehow, yeah

Cause I'm picking up a message lord

And I'm closer than I've ever been before

So if you have something to say

Say it to me now

Just say it to me now, now, oh

*

Doveglion

he isn't looking at anything
he isn't looking for something
he isn't looking
he is seeing

what

not something outside himself
not anything inside himself
but himself

himself how

not as some anyone
not as any someone

only as a noone(who is everyone)

E.E.Cummings

On the beach at night alone- Walt Whitman

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef
of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in
different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the
brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any
globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

Seizing my life in your hands, you thrashed me clean- Rumi

Seizing my life in your hands, you thrashed me clean
On savage rocks of eternal mind.
How its colors bled, until they grew white!
You smile and sit back: I dry in your sun.

The Sea boils with passion for you,
The clouds pour pearls at your feet
A lightning from your love has pierced the earth
This smoke curling to heaven is its child.

We were green: we ripened and grew golden.
The Sea terrified us: we learned how to drown.
Squat and earthbound, we unfolded huge wings.
We started sober: are love's startled drunkards.

You hide me in your cloak of nothingness
Reflect my ghost in your glass of being
I am nothing, yet appear: transparent dream
Where your eternity briefly trembles.

This love sacrifices all souls, however wise, however "awakened"
Cuts off their heads without a sword, hangs them without a scaffold.
We are the guests of the one who devours his guests
The friends of the one who slaughters his friends....
Although by his gaze he brings death to so many lovers
Let yourself be killed by him: is he not the water of life?
Never, ever, grow bitter: he is the friend and kills gently.
Keep your heart noble, for this most noble love
Kills only kings near God and men free from passion.
We are like the night, earth's shadow.
He is the Sun: He splits open the night with a sword soaked in dawn....

The man to whom is unveiled the mystery of Love
Exists no longer, but vanishes into love.
Place before the Sun a burning candle
And watch its brilliance disappear before that blaze,
The candle exists no longer, it is transformed into Light,
There are no more signs of it, it itself becomes sign....

You are my soul, my universe: what do I have to do with the soul and the universe?
For me you are ever-flowing treasure: what do I have to do with profit and loss?
One minute, I am the friend of the wine, another the friend of him who burns me.
I have come to this age of ruins, so what do I have to do with time's melodrama?
I am terrified by the whole world, I am sprung free of the whole world,
I am neither "hidden" no "apparent." What do I have to do with existence or space?
I am drunk on union with you, I need and want and care about no one else.
Since I am your prey, what do I care about fate's bow and its arrows?
I live at the bottom of the stream, why would I go looking for water?
What could or would I say about this stream that flows and flows?
I have given up existence, why go on staggering under the burden of this mountain?
Since the wolf is my shepherd, why put up with the pretensions of the shepherd?
What abandon! What drunkenness! You hold the cup in you hand
Blessed is the place you are, and glorious to the eye of the heart.
Each atom, by your grace, is a universe, each drop of water a soul.
No one who has ever had a sign from you need worry again about "name" or "sign."
To find the place of splendor, at the bottom of the Sea of truths
You have to dive, dive head first: what do I have to do with feet that scurry?
With the sword of the One God you have hacked a Path for us:
You have stolen all my clothes: What will I give to the toll-man?
From your beauty ablaze like the sun, from the curls of your hair,
My heart has become ecstatic: O my soul, hand me this brimming cup,
Do not weigh pain and misery, contemplate love, contemplate friendship:
Do not mull over tyranny and neglect: think of all those who have their eyes fixed on you.
Surname all grief 'grace': transmute pain and anguish into joy
And ask from joy all happiness, all security, all peace.
Demand that security, that peace, demand them,
Choose the company of those withdrawn in love
Listen to those who open a path to you: listen, and don't say a word.

Glorious is the moment we sit in the palace, you and I
Two forms, two faces, but a single soul, you and I
The flowers will blaze and bird cries shower us with immortality
The moment we enter the garden, you and I
All the stars of heaven will run out to gaze at us
As we burn as the full moon itself, you and I
The fire winged birds of heaven will rage with envy
In that place we laugh ecstatically, you and I
What a miracle, you and I, entwined in the same nest
While I am here in Konya, and you are in Khorassan
What a miracle, you and I, one love, one lover, one Fire
In this world and the next, in an ecstasy without end.


Rumi

Looking for a monk and not finding him

I took a small path leading
up a hill valley, finding there
a temple, its gate covered
with moss, and in front of
the door but tracks of birds;
in the room of the old monk
no one was living, and I
staring through the window
saw but a hair duster hanging
on the wall, itself covered
with dust; emptily I sighed
thinking to go, but then
turning back several times,
seeing how the mist on
the hills was flying, and then
a light rain fell as if it
were flowers falling from
the sky, making a music of
its own; away in the distance
came the cry of a monkey, and
for me the cares of the world
slipped away, and I was filled
with the beauty around me.

- Li Po

Translated by: Rewi Allen

Alone and drinking under the moon

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,

and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon

accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are

friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.

- Li Po

Two poems of Federico Garcia Lorca

The Prisoner

 Through the indecisive
branches
went a girl
who was life.
Through the indecisive
branches.
She reflected daylight,
with a tiny mirror,
which was the splendour,
of her unclouded  forehead.
Through the indecisive
branches.
In the dark of night,
lost, she wandered,
weeping the dew,
of this imprisoned time.
Through the indecisive
branches.

Song

The girl with the lovely face,
goes, gathering olives.
The wind, that towering lover,
takes her by the waist.
Four riders go by
on Andalusian ponies,
in azure and emerald suits,
in long cloaks of shadow.
‘Come to Cordoba, sweetheart!’
The girl does not listen.
Three young bullfighters go by,
slim-waisted in suits of orange,
with swords of antique silver.
‘Come to Sevilla, sweetheart!’
The girl does not listen.
When the twilight purples,
with the daylight’s dying,
a young man goes by, holding
roses, and myrtle of moonlight.
‘Come to Granada, my sweetheart!’
But the girl does not listen.
The girl, with the lovely face,
goes on gathering olives,
while the wind’s grey arms
go circling her waist.
 

Joy of life in art and in Zen- Matisse & Ikkyu

Three Poems on Love and Longing

Day and night I cannot keep you out of my thoughts;
In the darkness, on an empty bed, the longing deepens.
I dream of us joining hands, exchanging words of love,
But then the dawn bell shatters my reverie and rends my heart.
Women, lovely flowers that bloom and quickly fade;
Flowery faces, in full flush, lovely as dreams.
When flowers burst open they grow heavy with passion
But once they fall, no one speaks of them again.
Even if I were a god or a Buddha you’d be on my mind.
I sit beneath the lamp, a skinny monk chanting love songs.
The fierce autumn wind nearly bowls me over
And my heart is choked with thick clouds.
The wise heathens have no knowledge;
They just keep their mind continually set on the Way.
There are no big–shot Buddhas in nature
And ten thousand sutras are distilled in a single song.
I’d like to
Offer something
To help you
But in the Zen School
We don’t have a single thing!
A sex-loving monk, you object!
Hot-blooded and passionate, totally aroused.
Remember, though, that lust can consume all passion,
Transmuting base metal into pure gold.
Coming alone,
Departing alone,
Both are delusion:
Let me teach you how
Not to come, not to go!
Of all things
There is nothing
More congratulatory
Than a weather-beaten
Old skull!
Typhoons and floods make everyone suffer,
And tonight there will be no singing and dancing.
The Dharma flourishes and decays, ages come and go:
So right yet so sad—the bright moon sets behind the Western Pavilion.
Bliss and sorrow, love and hate, light and shadow, hot and cold, joy and anger, self and other.
The enjoyment of poetic beauty may well lead to hell.
But look what we find strewn all along our Path:
Plum blossoms and peach flowers!

From “Love Letters Sent by the Wind,” the poetry of Ikkyu translated and introduced by John Stevens. Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, Winter 2004.

Painting "Joy of Life" by Henri Matisse

Love is a parallax- Sylvia Plath

Love Is A Paralax

'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:
train tracks always meet, not here, but only
in the impossible mind's eye;
horizons beat a retreat as we embark
on sophist seas to overtake that mark
where wave pretends to drench real sky.'

'Well then, if we agree, it is not odd
that one man's devil is another's god
or that the solar spectrum is
a multitude of shaded grays; suspense
on the quicksands of ambivalence
is our life's whole nemesis.

So we could rave on, darling, you and I,
until the stars tick out a lullaby
about each cosmic pro and con;
nothing changes, for all the blazing of
our drastic jargon, but clock hands that move
implacably from twelve to one.

We raise our arguments like sitting ducks
to knock them down with logic or with luck
and contradict ourselves for fun;
the waitress holds our coats and we put on
the raw wind like a scarf; love is a faun
who insists his playmates run.

Now you, my intellectual leprechaun,
would have me swallow the entire sun
like an enormous oyster, down
the ocean in one gulp: you say a mark
of comet hara-kiri through the dark
should inflame the sleeping town.

So kiss: the drunks upon the curb and dames
in dubious doorways forget their monday names,
caper with candles in their heads;
the leaves applaud, and santa claus flies in
scattering candy from a zeppelin,
playing his prodigal charades.

The moon leans down to took; the tilting fish
in the rare river wink and laugh; we lavish
blessings right and left and cry
hello, and then hello again in deaf
churchyard ears until the starlit stiff
graves all carol in reply.

Now kiss again: till our strict father leans
to call for curtain on our thousand scenes;
brazen actors mock at him,
multiply pink harlequins and sing
in gay ventriloquy from wing to wing
while footlights flare and houselights dim.

Tell now, we taunq where black or white begins
and separate the flutes from violins:
the algebra of absolutes
explodes in a kaleidoscope of shapes
that jar, while each polemic jackanapes
joins his enemies' recruits.

The paradox is that 'the play's the thing':
though prima donna pouts and critic stings,
there burns throughout the line of words,
the cultivated act, a fierce brief fusion
which dreamers call real, and realists, illusion:
an insight like the flight of birds:

Arrows that lacerate the sky, while knowing
the secret of their ecstasy's in going;
some day, moving, one will drop,
and, dropping, die, to trace a wound that heals
only to reopen as flesh congeals:
cycling phoenix never stops.

So we shall walk barefoot on walnut shells
of withered worlds, and stamp out puny hells
and heavens till the spirits squeak
surrender: to build our bed as high as jack's
bold beanstalk; lie and love till sharp scythe hacks
away our rationed days and weeks.

Then jet the blue tent topple, stars rain down,
and god or void appall us till we drown
in our own tears: today we start
to pay the piper with each breath, yet love
knows not of death nor calculus above
the simple sum of heart plus heart.

Sylvia Plath