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