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The Swan
Across the wide waters
something comes
floating - a slim
and delicate
ship, filled
with white flowers--
and it moves
on its miraculous muscles
as though time didn't exist,
as though bringing such gifts
to the dry shore
was a happiness
almost beyond bearing.
And now it turns tis dark eyes,
it rearranges
the clouds of it is wings,
it trails
an elaborate webbed foot,
the color of charcoal.
Soon it will be here.
Oh what shall I do
when that poppy-colored beak
rests in my hand?
Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:
I miss my husband's company
he is so often
in paradise
Of course the path to heaven
doesn't lie down in flat miles.
It's in the imagination
with which you percieve
the world
and the gestures
with which you honor it
Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those
white wings
touch the shore?
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I Know The Way You Can Get
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.
Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.
Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self.
O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:
You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.
You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.
I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.
That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.
That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!
All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!
From: 'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz'
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
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Someone Who Can Kiss God
Come to my house late at night -
Do not be shy.
Hafiz will be barefoot and dancing.
I will be
In such a grand and generous mood!
Come to my door at any hour,
Even if your eyes
Are frightened by my light.
My heart and arms are open
And need no rest--
They will always welcome you.
Come in, my dear,
From that harsh world
That has rained elements of stone
Upon your tender face.
Every soul
Should receive a toast from us
For bravery!
Bring all the bottles of wine you own
To this divine table - the earth
We share.
If your cellar is empty,
This whole Univers
Could drink forever
From mine!
Let's dine tonight with exquisite music.
I might even hire angels
To play - just for you.
Look!
Hidden beneath your feet
Is a Luminous Stage
Where we are meant to rehearse
Our Eternal Dance!
And what is the price of my Divine Instruction?
What could I ask of you?
All I could ever want
Is that
You have the priceless company
Of Someone
Who can Kiss God,
That you have the priceless gift
Of becoming a servant to the Friend!
Come to my window, dear world --
Why ever be shy?
Look inside my playful Verse,
For Hafiz is Barefoot and Dancing
And in such a Grand and generous --
In such a Fantastic Mood.
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Saints Bowing in the Mountains
Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear.
For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.
I see saits bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.
Tell me of squirrels and birds you know.
Awaken your legion of nightingales-
Let them soar wild and free in the sky
And begin to sing to God.
Let's all begin to sing to God!
Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear,
Yet Hafiz
Could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!
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Saints Bowing in the Mountains
Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear.
For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.
I see saits bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.
Tell me of squirrels and birds you know.
Awaken your legion of nightingales-
Let them soar wild and free in the sky
And begin to sing to God.
Let's all begin to sing to God!
Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear,
Yet Hafiz
Could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!
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Someone Should Start Laughing
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing-
Now!
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A Golden Compass
Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any classroom ever taught you
Because
An empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear
Are always the testimony
You have been copletely fooled!
Turn your back on those
Who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company
Of the King's beggars-
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join teh courageous
Who have no choice
But to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.
I will lead you into the Circle
Of the Beloved's cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues-
The ones youcan trust for true guidance-
Who can aid you
In this Blessed Calamity of life.
Hafiz
Look at the Perfect One
At the Circle's Center:
He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,
Beyond all that is Rational,
To show this dear world
That Everything,
Everything in Existence
Does point to God.
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My Sweet, Crushed Angel
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.
You have waltzed with great style,
My sweet, crushed angel,
To have ever neared God's Heart at all.
Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
And even His best musicians are not always easy
To hear.
So what if the music has stopped for a while.
So what
If the price of admission to the Divine
Is out of reach tonight.
So what, my dear,
If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.
The mind and body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,
But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.
Have patience,
For He will not be able to resist your longing
For long.
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.
You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet,
Oh my sweet, crushed angel.
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My Eyes So Soft
Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly
let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
as few human or even divine ingredients can
Something missing in my heart tonight
has made my eyes so soft
my voice so tender
my need of god
absolutely clear.
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Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who knows only 4 words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
"Come Dance with Me."
Come Dance.
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There You Go Again
Ever since I stepped out of imagination
and into the heart of things
I have become so much less spiritual.
Heaven, hell and earth
hold no meaning for me anymore.
For I am neither coming
nor going
nor staying put.
All I do is notice all the varioius ways
that Light weaves itself into dreams.
When someone asks me who they are
or what God is
I smile inside and whisper to the Light:
There you go again pretending.
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I Woke Up Laughing
I had a dream last night.
We were all inside the sacred temple
looking for the entrance.
Who would have thought
that such insanity exists in heaven?
At first light I woke up
laughing.
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God is always dancing --- always.
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The Shape of Love
What we see is not the most important.
Could the dust rise without the invisible
hand of the wind?
Could a fan turn without any current?
Could lungs breathe without breath?
Tell me
What is the shape of love?
How much does Joy weigh
when held in the palm of your hand?
Can you catch the Spirit of life in a jar?
All things seen depend
upon the Unseen.
All sounds depend
upon Silence.
All things felt depend
upon what is not felt.
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From The Book of Time
I rose this moringing early as usual, and went to my desk.
But it's spring,
and the thrush is in the woods,
somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing.
And so, now, I am standing bythe open door.
And now I am stepping down onto the grass.
I am touching a few leavves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.
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Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves ...
Don't search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.
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Revelations
Bless you for your anger
It’s a sign of rising energy.
(Transform the energy to versatility
and it will bring you
prosperity).
Bless you for your sorrow
It’s a sign of vulnerability.
(Transform the energy to sympathy
and it will bring you love).
Bless you for greed
It’s a sign of great capacity.
(Transform the energy to giving.
Give as much as you wish to take,
and you will receive satisfaction).
Bless you for your jealousy
It’s a sign of empathy.
(Transform the energy to admiration
and what you admire will become
part of your life).
Bless you for your fear
It’s a sign of wisdom.
(Transform the energy to flexibility
and you will be free from what you fear).
Bless you for your search of direction
(Transform the energy to receptivity and
the direction will come to you).
Bless you for the times you see evil.
(Evil feeds on your support. Feed not
and it will self-destruct.
Shed light and it will cease to be).
Bless you for the times you feel no love.
Open your heart to life anyway
And in time you will find love in you.
You are a sea of goodness
You are a sea of love.
Bless you, bless you, bless you
Bless you for what you are
The world has all that you need
And you have the power to
attract what you wish.
Wish for health, wish for joy.
Remember, you are loved.
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The Opening of Eyes
That day I saw beneath dark clouds
The passing light over the water
And I heard the voice of the world speak out
I knew then as I have before
Life is no passing memory of what has been
Nor the remaining pages of a great book
Waiting to be read
It is the opening of eyes long closed
It is the vision of far off things
Seen for the silence they hold
It is the heart after years of secret conversing
Speaking out loud in the clear air
It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees
Before the lit bush
It is the man throwing away his shoes
As if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished
Opened at last
Fallen in love
With Solid Ground
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The Journey
Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again
Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.
You are not leaving
you are arriving.
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Heavy featured January 7, 2007
The time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had His hand in this,
as well as friends,
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,
was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry
but how you carry it--
books, bricks,grief--
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind,and maybe
also troubled--
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep wave,
a love
to which there is no reply?
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Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
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Lead
Here is a story
to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one,
of nothing we could see.
A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where
they still sing.
And, believe me, tell no one
just where that is.
The next morning
this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home
to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.
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all things connected
all things connected
fairies to tales
beginning to end
head to toes
to the dirt of the earth
to my bones
to the memory
of skin
redbirds to roses
to the sweet sting of thorns
kisses from queens
sent into the night
swords that slash
from hearts to veins
rivers of blood, red
red apples to serpents
who shed their skin
and begin again
anew
birth to death
the dye is cast
the layers are woven
set into motion
the wheel of time
is going fast and round
inside of you
and all over me
is this the part where
WE begin?
if not in this story
then where and when?
turn the page
all things intersect
at one place or another
all things will begin
with death and then
a dawning
crossroads and corners
will forever remain questions
marks on your map
asking only that you decide
turn the page!!
step into time
move deeper within
the story of yourself
find your course
look to the lines of the body for direction
revealing roads to hidden places
that you always knew existed
but have not yet journeyed
perhaps we will meet
in the middle of ourselves
perhaps
you will sense me in between the seams
find me with your fingertips
i will recognize your touch
i will remember it as my own
look for the links
listen to the rhythm
of our blood
as you
turn the page
kim g/ 1998
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she danced for the love she felt
she danced for the love she felt
the love she gave away
and the love she kept
she danced to free her spirit
and to free other spirits too
she danced in response to joy
and to process pain
she moved her body
like her life depended on it
all the while praying
for love to come for sadness to go
and danced
for all the people
who can't dance for themselves
she also taught others to dance
for justice, for truth, for possiblity
for healing the broken-hearted
she danced
with the little children
and the wise old ones
she danced
to break the ties that bind our women
to bring awareness and healing
to invite friendship and art
into the open spaces
that the dance created
she danced
to break open the hearts of our men
to bring truth and compassion
to encourage kindness and vision
toward the healed places
that the dance created
she danced to keep the flame of
true Love
burning
she danced
for all the wishes, all the dreams
and all the blessings
she danced the first dance
and the last dance
she danced
when she was too tired to walk
she danced
for the living and for the dead
in birth and in mourning
for peace, beauty and
creative -expression
she danced
our prayers all the way to G*D
which wasn't so very far after all
By Shiloh Sophia McCloud @2003
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RUMI'S SISTER
There is no cure for a broken
heart, but this,
let it break. Let it be inhabited
by the silence of train whistles
in the dark, by the bird whose
red violet song pours
out of his throat all night,
by the desert that sprang up shining
where the forest used to be.
Let the thirst pour through your
heart where once there was
water, and let the water pour
down your face where once
there was sun.
Let it break. Sit with it gently
as you would sit with an elderly relative whose
eyes have gone soft with memories. Give up
your need to be pain-free and just listen
to the pieces of your old boat
rocking gently in the water.
The tide will take it out. The fish
will bury it in their yawning
mouths and no one will be the wiser
that it ever existed.
There are no monuments to what
you feel. So don't make yourself
one. Just be happy
that you are alive to watch the drops
of your own blood filling the jar
and that you can choose to pour a little
jar of that precious life, onto
the roots of the reddest rose
you can find.
Go find that rose. It has made
splendid petals of its broken heart and
perfume that rises in the night
up to the loneliest stars. You were
allowed to live in this green oasis for
two or three bright moments
and while you were here, the
Lover touched you
everywhere.
Sip from your broken heart.
Swallow the tears of each moment.
Let your suffering carry you
like perfume.
jill Wright jill@starrypuddle.com
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TIGHTROPE
Once the tightrope has broken
beneath you, and your soul splintered
out your flailing arms,
you never work without a net.
You spend time learning
knots and tying them
fast.
But you forget
to rub oil on your shoulders,
nurture those little stubs of wings.
You forget to study the updraft
of the wind and memorize
the mathematics of maps.
Don't spend your time
on the net.
The only thing that can help you now
is flight.
jill Wright jill@starrypuddle.com
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In The Sun (song lyrics)
Joseph Arthur - In The Sun
I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in
May God's love be with you
Always
May God's love be with you
I know i would apologize if i could see your eyes
'Cause when you showed me myself i became someone else
But i was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You can't keep awake
May God's love be with you
Always
May God's love be with you
'Cause if i find
If i find my own way
How much will i find
If i find
If i find my own way
How much will i find
You
I don't know anymore
What it's for
I'm not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand
'Cause i been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe you're not even sure what it's for
Any more than me
May God's love be with you
Always
May God's love be with you
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Everything Is Waiting For You
(After Derek Mahon)
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
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pray for peace
Pray to whoever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah, raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekinhah, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.
Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, Record Keeper
of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Bow down
to terriers and shepherds and siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.
Pray to the bus driver who takes you to work,
pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus
and for everyone riding buses all over the world.
If you haven't been on a bus in a long time,
climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.
Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latté and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.
Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.
Making love, of course, is already a prayer.
Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile case we are poured into,
each caress a season of peace.
If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.
Pray to the angels and the ghost of your grandfather.
When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves
we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.
And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas, pray for peace.
With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.
Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.
Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust
of prayer, scoop your prayer water from the gutter.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.
-Ellen Bass
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Peonies
this morning the green fists of the peonis are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and the open----
pools of lace,
white and pink----
and all day the black ants climb over them,
boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away
to their dark, underground cities----
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,
the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding
all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again----
beauty the brave, the exemplary,
blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?
do you also hurry half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,
with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?
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Gannets
I am watching the white gannets
blaze down into the water
with the power of blunt spears
and a stunning accuracy----
even though the sea is riled and boiling
and gray with fog
and the fish
are nowhere to be seen,
they fall, they explode into the water
like white gloves,
then they vanish,
then they climb out again,
from the cliff of the wave,
like white flowers----
and still I think
that nothing in this world moves
but as a positive power----
even the fish, finning down into the current
or collapsing in the red purse of the beak,
are only interrupted from their own pursuit
of whatever it is
that fills their belliesand I say:
life is real,
and pain is real,
but death is an imposter,
and if I could be what once I was,
like the wolf or the bear
standing on the cold shore,
I would still see it---
how the fish simply escape, this time,
or how they slide down into the black fire
for a moment,
then rise from the water inseparable
from the gannets wings.
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Some Questions You Might Ask
Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beack of an owl?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why sthoid I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Whi should I have it and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about grass?
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The Esquimos Have No Word for "War"
Trying to explain it to them I
Leaves one feeling ridiculous and obscene.
Their houses, like white bowls, Sit on a prairie of ancient snowfalls
Caught beyond thaw or the swift changes
Of night and day.
They listen politely, and stride away
With spears and sleds and barking dogs
To hunt for food.
The women wait
Chewing on skins or singing songs,
Knowing that they have hours to spend,
That the luck of the hunter is often late.
Later, by fires and boiling bones
In steaming kettles, they welcome me,
Far kin, pale brother,
To share what they have in a hungry time
In a difficult land. While I talk on
Of the southern kingdoms, cannon, armies,
Shifting alliances, airplanes, power,
They chew their bones, and smile at one another.
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Night Flight
Traveling at thirty thousand feet, we see
How much of earth still lies in wilderness,
Till terminals occur like miracles
To civilize the paralyzing dark.
Buckled for landing to a tilting chair,
I think: if miracle or accident
Should send us on across the upper air,
How many miles, or nights, or years to go
Before the mind, with its huge ego paling,
Before the heart, all expectation spent, Should read the meaning of the scene below?
But now already the loved ones gather
Under the dome of welcome, as we glide
Over the final jutting mountainside,
Across the suburbs tangled in their lights,
And settled softly on the earth once more
Rise in the fierce assumption of our lives
Discarding smoothly, as we disembark,
All thoughts that held us wiser for a moment
Up there alone, in the impartial dark.
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Autumn Poem
In the last jovial, clear-sky days of autumn
the mockingbird
in his monk-gray coat
and his arrowy wings
flies
from the hedge to the top of the pine
and begins to sing-but it's neither
loose, nor lilting, nor lovely-
it's more like whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges.
All birds are birds of heaven
but this one, especially, adores the earth so well
he would imitate, for half the day and onto the evening,
its ticks and wheezings,
and so I have to wait a long time
for the soft, true voice
of his own glossy life
to come through,
and of course I do.
I don't know what it is that makes him, finally, look
Inward
to the sweet spring of himself, that mirror of heaven,
but when it happens-
when he lifts his head
and the feathers of his throat tremble,
and he begins, like Saint Francis,
little flutterings and leapings from the pine's forelock,
resettling his strong feet each time among the branches,
I am recalled,
from so many wrong paths I can't count them,
simply to stand, and listen.
All my life I have lived in a kind of haste and darkness
of desire, ambition, accomplishment.
Now the bird is singing, but not anymore of this world.
And something inside myself is fluttering and leaping, is trying
to type it down, in lumped-up language,
in outcry, in patience, in music, in a snow-white book.
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The Moths
There's a kind of white moth, I don't know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink moccasin flowers
are rising.
If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more and more.
And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that.
If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought, maybe
the world
can't be saved,
the pain
was unbearable.
Finally, I had noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.
How long do they live,
fluttering in and out of the shadows?
You aren't much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.
The wings of the moths catch the sunlight
and burn
so brightly.
At night, sometimes,
they slip between the pink lobes
of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,
motionless in those dark halls of honey.
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The Buddha's Last Instruction
"Make of yourself a light,"
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward, it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I'm not needed,
yet ! feel myself turning
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