April 2008
20 posts
New unask
This blog is now just over a year old. I’ve decided to make some changes. After much searching for a better site design (one that will provide a better display for the photographs, and truer colours) I’ve given up and started to build my own, from scratch. I’ll be posting new images and poems, and sometimes re-using poems and/or images that I’ve used before. The design...
A break, for a few days: the next post will be on Monday April 14th.
fire and gold
The monotone of the rain is beautiful, And the sudden rise and slow relapse Of the long multitudinous rain. The sun on the hills is beautiful, Or a captured sunset sea-flung, Bannered with fire and gold. A face I know is beautiful- With fire and gold of sky and sea, And the peace of long warm rain. Carl Sandburg
who died?
Is it your face that adorns the garden? Is it your fragrance that intoxicates this garden? Is it your spirit that has made this brook a river of wine? Hundreds have looked for you and died searching in this garden where you hide behind the scenes. But this pain is not for those who come as lovers. You are easy to find here. You are in the breeze and in this river of wine. Rumi
walking the dog
Two universes mosey down the street Connected by love and a leash and nothing else. Mostly I look at lamplight through the leaves While he mooches along with tail up and snout down, Getting a secret knowledge through the nose Almost entirely hidden from my sight. We stand while he’s enraptured by a bush Till I can’t stand our standing any more And haul him off; for our...
amaryllis
Fully occupied with growing--that's the amaryllis. One morning--and so soon!--the first flower has opened when you wake. Or you catch it poised in a single, brief moment of hesitation. Next day, another, shy at first like a foal, even a third, a fourth, carried triumphantly at the summit of those strong columns, and each a Juno, calm in brilliance, a maiden giantess in modest splendor. If humans...
temple
We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.Maya Angelou
actors
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a...
sleeping
I was sleeping when Namdeo and Vitthal stepped into my dream. “Your job is to make poems. Stop wasting time,” Namdeo said. Vitthal gave me the rhythm, and gently aroused me from a dream inside a dream. Namdeo vowed to write one billion poems. “All the unwritten ones are your responsibility,” he said. Sant Tukaram (1608-1649)
The Heart Sutra
—Murray. —Yes, Charlie. —Help. —Yes, Charlie. —Rinchen told me I had to read the Heart Sutra, immediately. —Yes. Very sensible. —Not a word, Murray, not a word of that text did I understand. ‘Emptiness is form, form is emptiness’. That makes no sense at all. not at all. —Right. Here we go again. —Keep it simple, please: I’m just an actor, I don’t do Sanskrit philosophy. —How about...
Spring is the Period Express from God. Among the other seasons Himself abide, But during March and April None stir abroad Without a cordial interview With God. Emily Dickinson
March 2008
57 posts
mirror
On the other side of a mirror there's an inverse world, where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the earth and recede to the first awareness of love. And in the evening the sun is just rising. Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon childhood robs them of their pleasure. In such a world there is much sadness which, of course, is joy.Russell Edson
self-blessing
The bud stands for all things, even those things that don't flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.Galway Kinnell
For he is of the tribe of Tiger. For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger. For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat. For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit. Christopher Smart
tower
All truth is one. In this light, may science and religion endeavour here for the steady evolution of mankind: from darkness to light, from narrowness to broadmindedness, from prejudice to tolerance. It is the voice of life which calls us to come and learn. Inscription on a bell in a University bell tower, quoted by Clifford Stoll.
…when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings. Sogyal Rinpoche
props
I sing a song of the croissant and of the wily French who trick themselves daily back to the world for its sweet ceremony. Ah to be reeled up into morning on that crisp, buttery hook. Linda Pastan
We are what we think All that we are arises with our thoughts With our thoughts, we make the world. The Buddha
red
Sometimes she walks through the village in her little red dress all absorbed in restraining herself, and yet, despite herself, she seems to move according to the rhythm of her life to come. She runs a bit, hesitates, stops, half-turns around… and, all while dreaming, shakes her head for or against. It’s this dress that she’ll remember later in a sweet surrender; when her whole...
kindly eyes
Look back on Time, with kindly eyes -- He doubtless did his best -- How softly sinks that trembling sun In Human Nature's West --Emily Dickinson
let love go on
LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone. Time runs with an ax and a hammer, time slides down the hallways with a pass-key and a master-key, and time gets by, time wins. Let the love of this hour go on; let all the oaths and children and people of this love be clean as a washed stone under a...
books
Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor! Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail! Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough? Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough? Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me; For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared...
Well, I look in your eyes, I see nobody other than me I look in your eyes, I see nobody other than me I see all that I am and all I hope to be Bob Dylan
pink
How can you stand it—looking at things? For example, the geranium out on the patio, the single pink blossom in the sun? Or stand the sunlight moving through it, illuminating, holding the flower open like a high clear note, an ecstatic widening which arrives, arrives. Kate Northrop
Daffodil-crowned
Hey! My daffodil-crowned, Slim and without sandals! As the sudden spurt of flame upon darkness So my eyeballs are startled with you, Supple-limbed youth among the fruit-trees, Light runner through tasselled orchards. You are an almond flower unsheathed Leaping and flickering between the budded branches.Amy Lowell
praise the shadow
Praise the shadow my neighor's chimney casts on the tile roof even this gray October day that should, they say, have been golden. Praise the invisible sun burning beyond the white cold sky, giving us light and the chimney's shadow. Praise god or the gods, the unknown, that which imagined us, which stays our hand, and gives us still our daily life, and the dream still of goodwill, of peace on...