q

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was
service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

-Rabindranath Tagore, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter,
educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

p

Living

The fire in leaf and grass

so green it seems

each summer the last summer.

The wind blowing, the leaves

shivering in the sun,

each day the last day.

A red salamander

so cold and so

easy to catch , dreamily

moves his delicate feet

and long tail, I hold

my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.

Denise Levertov

q

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is
able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has
learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all
things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the
circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all
knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

-Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)

q

Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth.

-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)

p

This poem was sent to me by a friend in response to the poem sent last
week.

This Only

A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.

A voyager arrives, a map leads him there.

Or perhaps memory. Once long ago in the sun,

When snow first fell, riding this way

He felt joy, strong, without reason,

Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm

Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,

Of a train on the viaduct, a feast in motion.

He returns years later, has no demands.

He wants only one, most precious thing:

To see, purely and simply, without name,

Without expectations, fears, or hopes,

At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

Czeslaw Milosz trans. by Robert Hass

q

The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable.

-J.S. Buckminster, clergyman and editor (1797-1812)

q

To Autumn

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained

With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit

Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayst rest,

And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,

And all the daughters of the year shall dance!

Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

"The narrow bud opens her beauties to

The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;

Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and

Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,

Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,

And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.

"The spirits of the air live on the smells

Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round

The gardens, or sits singing in the trees."

Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat;

Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak

Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

William Blake

q

Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience,
your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.

-Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

p

Assurance

 

You will never be alone, you hear so deep

a sound when autumn comes.  Yellow

pulls across the hills and thrums,

or the silence after lightening before it says

its names—and then the clouds' wide-mouthed

apologies.  You were aimed from birth:

you will never be alone.  Rain

will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon,

long aisles—you never hard so deep a sound,

moss on rock, and years.  You turn your head-

that's what the silence meant: you're not alone.

The whole wide world pours down.

 

            William Stafford

q

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each
other?

-George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)

p

Invisible Work

 

Because no one could ever praise me enough,

because I don't mean these poems only

but the unseen

unbelievable effort it takes to live

the life that goes on between them,

I think all the time about invisible work.

About the young mother on Welfare

I interviewed years ago,

who said, "It's hard.

You bring him to the park,

run rings around yourself keeping him safe,

cut hot dogs into bite-sized pieces for dinner,

and there's no one

to say what a good job you're doing,

how you were patient and loving

for the thousandth time even though you had a headache."

And I, who am used to feeling sorry for myself

because I am lonely,

when all the while,

as the Chippewa poem says, I am being carried

by great winds across the sky,

thought of the invisible work that stitches up the world day and night,

the slow, unglamorous work of healing,

the way worms in the garden

tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe

and bees ransack this world into being,

while owls and poets stalk shadows,

our loneliest labors under the moon.

 

There are mothers

for everything, and the sea

is a mother too,

whispering and whispering to us

long after we have stopped listening.

I stopped and let myself lean

a moment, against the blue

shoulder of the air. The work

of my heart

is the work of the world's heart.

There is no other art.

 

~ Alison Luterman ~

q

I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings
called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with
such things as crawl upon earth.

-Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

p

Coplas about the soul which suffers with impatience to see God

I live without inhabiting

Myself—in such a wise that I

Am dying that I do not die.

Within myself I do not dwell

Since without God I cannot live.

Reft of myself and God as well,

What serves this life (I cannot tell)

Except a thousand death to give?

Since waiting here for life I lie

And die because I do not die.

This life I live in vital strength

Is loss of life unless I win You:

And thus to die I shall continue

Until in You I live at length.

Listen (my God!) my life is in You,

This life I do not want, for I

Am dying that I do not die.

Thus in your absence and your lack

How can I in myself abide

Nor suffer here a death more black

Than ever was by mortal died.

For pity of myself I've cried

Because in such a plight I lie

Dying because I do not die.

The fish that from the stream is lost

Derives some sort of consolation

That in his death he pays the cost

At least of death's annihilation.

To this dread life with which I'm crossed

What fell death can compare, since I,

The more I live, the more must die.

When thinking to relieve my pain

I in the sacraments behold You

It brings me greater grief again

That to myself I cannot fold You.

And that I cannot see you plain

Augments my sorrow so that I

Am dying that I do not die.

If in the hope I should delight,

Oh Lord, of seeing You appear,

The thought that I might lose Your sight,

Doubles my sorrow and my fear.

Living as I do in such fright,

And yearning as I yearn, poor I

Must die because I do not die.

Oh rescue me from such a death

My God, and give me life, not fear;

Nor keep me bound and struggling here

Within the bounds of living breath.

Look how I long to see You near,

And how in such a plight I lie

Dying because I do not die!

I shall lament my death betimes,

And mourn my life, that it must be

Kept prisoner by sins and crimes

So long before I am set free:

Ah God, my God, when shall it be?

When I may say (and tell no lie)

I live because I've ceased to die?

St. John of the Cross

(trans. By Roy Campbell)

q

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

-Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (1857-1938)

p

Stone

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

~ Charles Simic ~

p

Salt Heart

I was tired,
half sleeping in the sun.
A single bee
delved the lavender nearby,
and beyond the fence,
a trowel's shoulder knocked a white stone.
Soon, the ringing stopped.
And from somewhere,
a quiet voice said the one word.
Surely a command,
though it seemed more a question,
a wondering perhaps-"What about joy?"
So long had it been forgotten,
even the thought raised surprise.
But however briefly, there,
in the untuned devotions of bee
and the lavender fragrance,
the murmur of better and worse was unimportant.
From next door, the sound of raking,
and neither courage nor cowardice mattered.
Failure-uncountable failure-did not matter.
Soon enough that gate swung closed,
the world turned back to heart-salt
of wanting, heart-salts of will and grief.
My friend would continue dying, at last
only exhausted, even his wrists thinned with pain.
The river Suffering would take what it
wished of him, then go. And I would stay
and drink on, as the living do, until the rest
would enter into that water-the lavender swept in,
the bee, the swallowed labors of my neighbor.
The ordinary moment swept in, whatever it drowsily holds.
I begin to believe the only sin is distance, refusal.
All others stemming from this. Then, come.
Rivers, come. Irrevocable futures, come. Come even joy.
Even now, even here, and though it vanish like him.

 

            Jane Hirschfield

q

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the
thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power
to revoke at any moment.

Marcus Aurelius Antonius

p

Ode I. 11

 

Leucon, no one's allowed to know his fate,

Not you, not me: don't ask, don't hunt for answers

In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes.

This could be our last winter, it could be many

More, pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks:

Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines

And forget about hope. Time goes running, even

As we talk. Take the present, the future's no one's affair.

 

~ Horace ~

 

(The Essential Horace, edited and translated by Burton Raffel)

q

There are 1011 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But
it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We
used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them
economical numbers.

-Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)

q

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the
world weigh less than a single lovely action.

-James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)

p

After Psalm 137

We're still in Babylon but

We do not weep

Why should we weep?

We have forgotten how to weep

We've sold our harps

And bought ourselves machines

That do our singing for us

And who remembers now

The songs we sang in Zion?

We have got used to exile

We hardly notice

Our captivity

For some of us

There are such comforts here

Such luxuries

Even a guard

To keep the beggars

From annoying us

Jerusalem

We have forgotten you.

Anne Porter

q

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

-William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)

p

In early July I went backpacking in the Weminuche Wilderness in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado.  This was Plan B, as New Mexico was closed due to fire and our original destination in the Pecos Wilderness was closed out. I wrote a couple of poems on the trip - here they are.  And if you are interested in seeing some beautiful mountain scenery, you an see a slideshow of our trip at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30759355@N08/sets/72157627240939632/

Old Men in the Mountains

 

Moving slowly, stopping

often.

The rocks, trees, flowers

a balm for aching joints,

short breath.

 

This may be the last time.

 

There will be a last time

for that mountain blue sky

the solitude of tall trees

the hard work of getting here

the camaraderie

the silence of awe

the  rumble of snow melt

the taste of winds born

in hidden places.

We Cannot Remain Here

 

There is no abiding

on the mountain pass

above the trees

among rocks and snow.

Our time passes swiftly,

our stay here is brief.

Mountains rise up

and are worn down.

Shouldering packs

we walk

down, down, down,

knowing  

we are kissed with life

and death.

q

There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham. 

-Anna Sewell, writer (1820-1878)

p

As imperceptible as Grief

The Summer lapsed away –

Too imperceptible at last

To seem like Perfidy –

A Quietness distilled

As Twilight long begun,

Or Nature spending with herself

Sequestered Afternoon –

The Dusk drew earlier in –

The Morning foreign shone –

A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,

As Guest, that would be gone –

And thus, without a Wing

Or service of a Keel

Our Summer made her light escape

Into the Beautiful.

Emily Dickenson

q

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity. 

-Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)

p

Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet

At this height, Kansas
is just a concept,
a checkerboard design of wheat and corn

no larger than the foldout section
of my neighbor's travel magazine.
At this stage of the journey

I would estimate the distance
between myself and my own feelings
is roughly the same as the mileage

from Seattle to New York,
so I can lean back into the upholstered interval
between Muzak and lunch,

a little bored, a little old and strange.
I remember, as a dreamy
backyard kind of kid,

tilting up my head to watch
those planes engrave the sky
in lines so steady and so straight

they implied the enormous concentration
of good men,
but now my eyes flicker

from the in-flight movie
to the stewardess's pantyline,
then back into my book,

where men throw harpoons at something
much bigger and probably
better than themselves,

wanting to kill it, wanting
to see great clouds of blood erupt
to prove that they exist.

Imagine being born and growing up,
rushing through the world for sixty years
at unimaginable speeds.

Imagine a century like a room so large,
a corridor so long
you could travel for a lifetime

and never find the door,
until you had forgotten
that such a thing as doors exist.

Better to be on board the Pequod,
with a mad one-legged captain
living for revenge.

Better to feel the salt wind
spitting in your face,
to hold your sharpened weapon high,

to see the glisten
of the beast beneath the waves.
What a relief it would be

to hear someone in the crew
cry out like a gull,
Oh Captain, Captain!
Where are we going now?

 

            Tony Hoagland

q

> The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly
> themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we
> love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
> Thomas Merton

p

Wheat

 

Let a stalk of wheat

be your witness

to every difficult day.

Since it was a flame

before it was a plant,

since it was courage

before it was grain,

since it was determination

before it was growth,

and, above all, since it was prayer

before it was fruition,

it has nothing to point to

but the sky.

Remember the incredibly gentle wheat stalk

which holds its countless arrows fixed

to shoot from the bowstring --

you, standing in the same position

where the wind holds it.

 

~ Ishihara Yoshiro ~

q

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

Damon Runyon

q

It may be that when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled in not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

 

                                 Wendell Berry

p

 

DOING NOTHING

 

I balance

on one foot, then the other,

reaching in for the pebbly berries

suspended on red whips and canes,

a lush clinging. One edge,

I reach in, the hone of a thorn

not unlike the white

of mosquitoes beneath the leaves.

I pick my way in,

as if this discipline

has nothing to do with the moon

which last opened

red, then paled

to the pale of a petal

in a still, black sky.

Slowly, I pick my way in,

skillfully, a means that

has nothing to do with

doing harm

or harvest.

 

For this moment, I forget

the pain that wants to

forget pain, and practice

touching lightly.

I watch my hands learn

their way past each

edge, each horizon,

lightly, touching

until between each berry

there is such space

I no longer have to hold

back, let go, or grasp.

Doing nothing, I

no longer wait for whole

other worlds to break open,

more beautiful than this one

whose wild darkness

stains my fingers,

my mouth, my tongue.

 

Margaret Gibson

q

He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the
gate open.
Rabindanath Tagore

p

Turning

Going too fast for myself I missed

more than I think I can remember

almost everything it seems sometimes

and yet there are chances that come back

that I did not notice when they stood

where I could have reached out and touched them

this morning the black shepherd dog

still young looking up and saying

Are you ready this time

W. S. Merwin

q

Wherever you are is the entry point.
Kabir

p

Beannacht
("Blessing")

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

~ John O'Donohue ~

q

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the
reflection of his own face.
William Thackery

q

 

Here is the work of patience: to die to the world of acting, the world of hoping and so to open oneself to the suffering of the whole world.  This is true passion, taking in the suffering of all together.  This patience is the birth of compassion.

And here is the work of patience: to become brave and fierce, set like a spring to seize whatever life puts in the way of our stiletto beaks.  To stalk it and impale it and with a flip of our muscular necks, to fling it into the air and swallow it whole.  Seize the day in a razor beak. This patience is the birth of joy.

And here is the work of patience: to be ready for the world to slit us, the full length of us, opening our heart with the pellucid attention that is the watchfulness of the heron in the cove at the end of the day, when wood smoke slides onto the rising tide and slanting rain pocks the water.  This patience is the birth of gratitude.

 Kathleen Dean Moore (The Patience of Herons)

p

Upon the blooming plum twig
a warbler
wipes his muddy feet

Issa (trans. by Nanao Sakaki)

q

... have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try
to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books
written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, m
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.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~ Letters to a Young Poet (excerpt)

Ps and Qs Redux

Dear Folks,

I know that it has been more than a year since i last posted here, but I think that i am ready to renew my commitment. I intend to begin sending regular poems and quotes as before - hopefully one each on a weekly basis.

As always, your suggestions and feedback are welcome. I am always happy to hear from you.

The New Notebook

Full of superstition

I begin a new notebook,

white leaves –- sea foam.

I close my eyes and wait

for the first day of the world,

for Aphrodite with wet lips,

red curls of flame,

an open shell,

shy and sure,

to rise from the salt foam,

out of the primordial algae.

I wait under closed eyelids.

Once can hear the grey rustle of the sea gulls,

under the low sky

and the monotonous thunder of waves

only of waves

which come and go.

--Maria Banus

(Translated from Romanian by

Laura Schiff and Dana Beldiman)

Stephen Wilder

sotan@optonline.net