The Masters of Enlightenment: Basho

The series on the Masters of Enlightenment continues today with a look at Matsuo Basho, the 17th century Japanese poet who is internationally renowned as a master of haiku.

Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 moras (or on), in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 moras respectively. Although haiku are often stated to have 17 syllables, this is inaccurate as syllables and moras are not the same.  A mora is something of which a long syllable consists of two and a short syllable consists of one.

The art of haiku stems from the Zen tradition, which I discussed in the article on Alan Watts. The goal of Zen is for the direct transmission of Truth to occur, without intermediary; as Alan Watts would say, “This is it.”

Or as Alan Watts simply explained it: “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

In Zen, the desire is to have an awakening of the mind, an “Aha” moment (or in the Zen tradition, “satori”), using brief and simple koans, which are simple worded mind-bending questions and phrases that challenge the student to transcend their rational thinking capability in order to arrive at a transrational solution that allows them to open their mind to a greater reality.

This greater reality is called Zen mind, No Mind, or Big Mind.

Much of traditional Japanese culture is aimed at this direct transmission: the Tea Ceremony, the Flower Ceremony, food preparation, calligraphy, the martial arts, bonsai, and poetry – especially haiku, with its simple asymmetrical rhythm that has the power of helping the reader achieve satori.

And it is Basho who is revered for his simple haiku, with its clarity and simplicity.

Basho was introduced to poetry at a young age, and after integrating himself into the intellectual scene of the Japanese city of Edo, he quickly became well-known throughout Japan.

He made a living as a teacher, but renounced the social, urban life of the literary circles and was inclined to wander throughout the country, heading west, east, and far into the northern wilderness to gain inspiration for his writing. His poems were influenced by his firsthand experience of the world around him, often encapsulating the feeling of a scene in a few simple elements.

He made many long journeys in his life throughout Japan; in between the journeys he would live in the countryside outside of Edo in a hut his disciples built for him. There he would teach, until his restlessness overcame him, at which time he would embark on another journey.

Two of his most famous haiku are these:

1) An ancient pond
a frog jumps in
the splash of water

2) The rough sea
stretching out towards Sado
the Milky Way

And his last poem written before he died, his poem of farewell:

Falling sick on a journey
my dream goes wandering
over a field of dried grass

Here are other of Basho’s haiku:

From moon wreathed
bamboo grove,
cuckoo song.

Summer grasses
all that remains
of soldiers dreams.

Not one traveller
braves this road -
autumn night.

Clouds -
a chance to dodge
moonviewing.

Orchid breathing
incense into
butterfly wings.

Spring – through
morning mist
what mountains there?

Autumns end
how does my
neighbor live?

Black cloudbank broken
scatters in the night…now see
moon-lighted mountains!

Husking rice,
a child squints up
to view the moon.

Clouds come from time to time –
and bring to men a chance to rest
from looking at the moon.

Whore and monk, we sleep
under one roof together,
moon in a field of clover.

Now I see her face,
the old woman, abandoned,
the moon her only companion.

To Kyoto
still half the sky to go—
snowy clouds

Happy Poetic New Year!

We kick off the new year here at the Low Density Lifestyle website with a poem by Vermont-based poet David Tucker, who has graced our pages before, the most recent time with his poem The River-Woman’s Daughter.

David’s new poem is called Longing, and in the above video, David does a reading of the poem. In true poet fashion, David adds a visual twist to his reading.

This is what David has to say about himself:
“I am a poet who lives in Vermont where I struggle to dig from the rock of mundanity formed by the details and disappointments of life the images that will startle us and remind us how we are connected to each other and to all the universe.”

Here is David’s poem:

Longing

Now,
as sure as Hades hears no joy,
new snow will fall into my path
and all the footprints
marked my way
will disappear
because I burned
the scripture written on my youth:
‘Love the money not the kiss’.
Watch.
You’ll see.
I now must wander
the pathless sky because
my longing for the breath of God
has welded
shut my purse
in which I carry
my old compass,
my pride,
my wish for the praise of women.
And, my mother says,
worst of all,
I do not care.
I toss it all
for just a taste,
just a tiny shiver
from the sweet breath
that lights the dawn!

I would do differently
if I could.
I would be responsible.
I would be ambitious.
I would be good.
I would be the poster child of mental health
if I could
but I can hear
death sniff the vacant seconds
of my past
looking for my life
to chew
and drag into the dark.

And
in the forest
of the hammer blows
of time
and age
and death,
certainty rises
pink like a new sun
over the ocean
of my soul:
no one moment
is wide enough
to acquire the light
that breaks the grasp of night
unless the voice of God
licks it
until
it become as wide as the sun.
Come, Lady
who turns the stars
and bakes the light
that tingles in the belly of my soul,
lick the darkness
out of every moment.

She
who has knocked me to my knees,
cut the tendons of my will
and tied me to her bed.
I would trade a million dollars
for her kiss.
Wouldn’t you?

Enjoy the poem – whether you watch it, read it, or both, and see you next time as we continue the series on the Masters of Enlightenment, as part of the series on Spirituality.

And don’t forget: The Low Density Lifestyle book is now out! You can check out an excerpt from the book, and buy it, at the Low Density Lifestyle bookstore.

The River-Woman’s Daughter

The series on The Roots of Healing has ended – the last article in the series was the three-part article on Wilhelm Reich.

I now turn towards a new subject, that of Spirituality. I’ll be exploring this subject over the next few weeks.

Connecting to the spiritual dimension is something that is important, and is a key element of living a Low Density Lifestyle. You’ll learn more about this as this series unfolds.

Today, as a kick-off to this series, we have a poem by the poet David Tucker. David last graced the Low Density Lifestyle website at the beginning of the year with the article Onto a New Year, which featured a series of David’s poems.

This is what David has to say about himself:
“I am a poet who lives in Vermont where I struggle to dig from the rock of mundanity formed by the details and disappointments of life the images that will startle us and remind us how we are connected to each other and to all the universe.”

Today, here is his poem, For Goldberry, the River-Woman’s Daughter.

For Goldberry, the River-Woman’s Daughter

I love God,
passionately.
I mean,
I make a real production of it.
I walk around the house,
shouting Her name,
His name.
I weep.
My heart
jumps up
on the fence hammered
from all my ecstasy
and crows
and crows
my adoration
to the sweet presence
making love
to every cell of my body.

And now,
to the middle
of my river of bliss,
you glide on your slim bark
signal flags proclaiming peace
and intelligence,
love and compassion
smelling of herbs,
earth
and the sun
stored in the leaves of Summer.

What will I do?
I am so vulnerable
to the Daughters of River Goddesses.
Even mortal women
have been able
to unbuckle the leather
strapped around my heart
and send me chasing
down the street
after my spilled emotions.

What,
in the sweet name of heaven
will happen with you?
This is not fair.
We speak together,
connect,
and a sacred song
from the mists off Withywindle
rattles the chimes
of my soul.
Within you
I see the One I adore.
I see the One
who stirs my heart
to leap upon the backs of stars
and ride
the dark and silver sky.

I think I’m had.
I think I’m stuck.
But,
even in my bondage
may I sing loud and sweet.
I may never be allowed
to kiss the dawn
into your heart,
but,
always,
always,
will I remember Who you are.
Remember Who lives within you,
Will, always
dance my prayers
to you
over miles
or years
or death
to brighten,
at least,
a little corner
of the garden
of the River-Woman’s Daughter.

The Poetry of Leonard Cohen

I end this inaugural week of 2010, and the poetry articles that ushered in the year – as a way to help get us in a Low Density Lifestyle frame of mind – with the words of a master poet, Leonard Cohen.

Cohen, born in 1934, is a well-known singer-songwriter and author of many classic songs, including “Suzanne,” “Sisters of Mercy,” “Hallelujah,” “So Long Marianne,” “Who By Fire,” and “Everybody Knows.”

A few months I wrote an entire article about Leonard Cohen because of his fascinating life journey – the article was called The Spiritual Odyssey of Leonard Cohen.

He is truly a gifted individual and it’s safe to say, an icon.

At the top of the page, you can view his spoken word poem, A Thousand Kisses Deep. Here are the words to the poem:

Don’t matter if the road is long
Don’t matter if it’s steep
Don’t matter if the moon is gone
And the darkness is complete
Don’t matter if we lose our way
It’s written that we’ll meet
At least, that’s what I heard you say
A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat
You see, I’m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second hand physique
With all he is and all he was
A thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me
I know you had to cheat
You learned it on your father’s knee
And at your mother’s feet
But did you have to fight your way
Across the burning street
When all our vital interests lay
A thousand kisses deep

I’m turning tricks
I’m getting fixed
I’m back on boogie street
I’d like to quit the business
But I’m in it, so to speak
The thought of you is peaceful
And the file on you complete
Except what I forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep

Don’t matter if you’re rich and strong
Don’t matter if you’re weak
Don’t matter if you write a song
The nightingales repeat
Don’t matter if it’s nine to five
Or timeless and unique
You ditch your life to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep

The ponies run
The girls are young
The odds are there to beat
You win a while, and then it’s done
Your little winning streak
And summon now to deal with your invincible defeat
You live your life as if it’s real
A thousand kisses deep

I hear their voices in the wine
That sometimes did me seek
The band is playing Auld Lang Syne
But the heart will not retreat
There’s no forsaking what you love
No existential leap
As witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep

And here are some additional Leonard Cohen videos:

The first video is Cohen doing his haunting and beautiful hymn, Hallelujah. Of this song Leonard Cohen says, “It’s, as I say, a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion…. It’s a rather joyous song.”

The second is of singer/pianist Allison Crowe performing the same song – it’s really an amazing performance that will truly touch your soul. Many people have done this song; it was Rufus Wainwright’s version that was featured in the movie Shrek.

And the third video is of Leonard Cohen singing Who by Fire. The song features a saxophone introduction by the legendary sax player Sonny Rollins.

Have No Fear! We’re Ringing in the New Year With Poetry Far and Near

To start the New Year, I thought it would be a nice and very Low Density Lifestyle thing to do to usher it in with poetry.

We first heard from poet David Tucker, and then the next day we heard from Susan Jefts.

Today I offer a collection of poets who offer poems for the new year.

These are poems of optimism and hope. And that’s the best way to ring in the new year – to be full of optimism and hope.

First up is poet Kim Addonizio with her poem “New Year’s Day,” in which she finds a blessing where few would think to look for it:

Today I want
to resolve nothing.

I only want to walk
a little longer in the cold

blessing of the rain,
and lift my face to it.

Next up is poet Margaret Avison with her deftly written “New Year’s Poem,” in which she finds a new appreciation for home and her own space:

Gentle and just pleasure
It is, being human, to have won from space
This unchill, habitable interior
Which mirrors quietly the light
Of the snow, and the new year.

Next we have poet Philip Appleman, who finds beauty in an unlikely event in “To the Garbage Collectors in Bloomington, Indiana, the First Pickup of the New Year”:

O garbage men,
the New Year greets you like the Old;
after this first run you too may rest
in beds like great warm aproned laps
and know that people everywhere have faith:
putting from them all things of this world,
they confidently bide your second coming.

And last, we have poet Susan Elizabeth Howe’s poem about New Year’s optimism undeterred by some bad news from a fortune cookie. Here’s an excerpt from “Your Luck Is About to Change”:

Ominous inscrutable Chinese news
to get just before Christmas,
considering my reasonable health,
marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan,
career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet.
Not bad, considering what can go wrong:
the bony finger of Uncle Sam
might point out my husband,
my own national guard,
and set him in Afghanistan;
my boss could take a personal interest;
the pain in my left knee could spread to my right.
Still, as the old year tips into the new,
I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking
his legs in the air. I won’t give in…

The Poetic Nature of Life

Yesterday’s article, Onto a New Year, was the first of the new year. I said in the article how I wanted to start the new year off in a Low Density Lifestyle kind of way, by featuring poetry all week long.

In yesterday’s article, I featured poetry by David Tucker. Today’s article brings a new guest poet, Susan Jefts.

You may remember Susan from a few weeks ago, when she guest wrote the article, Life is Poetry.

Susan is back today with some poetry to help get us in a Low Density Lifestyle mood, to help us feel lighter of mind, body and spirit.

And if we were to have any type of New Year’s resolutions, that should be it – to feel lighter.

And so, without further ado, here are some poems, by Susan Jefts.

BARDO* OVER THE HUDSON

Words. Born out of vibrating air
at West 26th street, air of myth and poetry.
Words. Some danced patterns for me outside
on the sidewalk as I headed toward midtown.
Words. I ran into more the next day
below the Columbus statue in Central Park,
arranging themselves on purple pansies that
startled me out of any remaining winter.
Words, hanging languidly outside the window
at Café Europa, their fairy bodies hovering
between creme brulée and Carnegie Hall.

Words, at the wide throat of the Hudson
as my train rambles northward. These words
flicker like unborn fireflies unversed
in the art of direction, or rhythm, or sound.
They are the ones I want.
These in between words, lingering low in that
bardo like place, the sacred gap the mystics so honor.
Here, that place floats on smoky mist over the Hudson.
Air between Gotham and Lake Tear of the Clouds,
life receiving and life giving,
Between being and becoming,
the word, the image,
Poetry.

*Bardo: a word of Eastern origin describing the continuous state of oscillation between certainty and uncertainty, bewilderment and insight, that characterizes all of life, a state that by its nature creates gaps, spaces in which profound chances and opportunities for transformation are continuously flowering – if they can be seen and seized.
Tricycle Magazine, winter 2001

NIGHT FLIGHT IN VERMONT

I am looking for poems tonight.
I’ve just pulled one from this leather couch
and another has risen from my jasmine tea.
There is at least one written along the white ridge
of the mountain visible from the window
and another along its gradual southern slope.
I think about the one I can’t see
where the mountain meets the valley
and the valley, the village,
or perhaps it’s a river and
the wild moan of the trees. The gasp
of the night owl on her flight
through the black and ash pattern of the forest
under the broken light of the moon
that leads to an open field,
a small lit farm and the rise of a hill.
Winter appears there as in a Chagall,
blue horses in the field rise up, float with candles
in the heavens, drift back down to the river -
river sacred swirling myth that flows from
the once golden valley, from the mountain
that sits like a chapel, reflected light
and a pinnacle of breath.

WHAT REMAINS

Late afternoon

two days after Christmas

snow has fallen.

A carol sounds from the kitchen:

Greensleeves.

The carol stays with me

and Christmas drifts further away.

What remains is this.

Silence after snow,

long blue shadows,

a white farmhouse

and not far off,

a stand of evergreens.

BEFORE COFFEE

I don’t know how to put together

the world again, I can’t stop

the February rain. But I know

these few moments this morning -

before thought

before coffee,

when words are starlings

flitting in and out of my mind

and all I know is this space inside

that feels a little

like God – nothing to fill,

nothing to say,

just this pause

this place

before poetry.

AT THE RUBIN MUSEUM

The Bon people of the Himalayas believe a little imbalance is a good thing and portray this in their art. Everything is a little off, on purpose, and everything is needed and everything is good.

Snow dragons above

lotus to the left

mandala in the middle.

Always

unity and blossoming mind.

Snow dragon says

wrath and fire

peace inside.

The yin and the yang

the four directions

the wrathful one and the protector.

Fear and love

all inside the lotus.

Onto a New Year

Happy New Year! And may it be a Low Density Lifestyle year, all year long.

I want to start the year in a nice way. No, I won’t be talking about New Year’s resolutions. That you see written and talked about all over the place, so I won’t bore you with that kind of thing.

Instead, I want to start the year off right, in a Low Density Lifestyle kind of way. For this entire week, before I begin writing on a specific series, which I will do next week, I will feature poetry.

Life is Poetry – poetry can make us feel lighter of body, mind and spirit, and often can speak to our soul. It talks to us in ways that prose often cannot, in rhythms and cadences that can reverberate and resonate with our deepest longings.

It can also help us be more in touch with the innate low density nature we all carry within. It is this instinct that propels us forward in life; it is a natural drive we all have, one that desires happiness, love, joy and peace.

Unfortunately, it gets muddied up and lost. And it is poetry that can help us find it.

And so, each day of this week we’ll hear from a different poet.

Today’s poet is David Tucker. I’ll let David tell you about himself:

“I am a poet who lives in Vermont where I struggle to dig from the rock of mundanity formed by the details and disappointments of life the images that will startle us and remind us how we are connected to each other and to all the universe.”

Here are some poems of David’s, to help us ring in the New Year and put us in a Low Density Lifestyle frame of mind.

David’s email address is davidshawnee@mac.com.

To Learn How to Love

It is so beautiful,
this life,
the sun,
Vermont,
evening creeping in
over the Green Mountains.

It is light,
sweet,
so beautiful,
this life,
that we are given
that we might
learn how to love.

A simple lesson
I cannot catch.
A lovely butterfly
too light and quick.
For weeks now
I grab
and cannot hold
how beautiful,
how sweet,
how light
is this life
we learn
how to love.

As the Morning Glory
buckles into the night
I crumple into
fear,
anger,
darkness.
I think
I may die soon.
I think
How quickly it passes.
I think
What have I accomplished?
I think
It is not fair.
I have forgotten.
I came here
to learn how to love
and
in the evening light,
in the sweet approach of night,
I remember,
this minute
is enough,
to love
is what I came to learn.
It is enough.

Sabbath,
For Catherine

I woke this morning
paused
only a minute,
ate a tiny slice of peace,
sipped a thimble of light,
jumped up
and put on
my harness,
walked to the field,
head down,
up to the plow,
snapped on the line,
flexed my thighs
and prepared to pull.

Then stopped,
staring at the clods
and broken sod.
What, oh Creator
do you have planned
for me
today?
Pulling this plow
is my idea.

I looked up,
unsnapped the line
and
suddenly
the air was full
of butterflys,
cobalt blue wings
with
eyes as gold
as daffodils.
I broke up
the plow and made a drum.
We danced,
stepping and leaping
on the hard ground,
broke it into velvet loam.
Ready
to receive
the seed.

Meditation

You cannot trap

the sunshine

or

capture love

Maybe

for a minute

or a night

but

time

always shows up

cuts their chains

and

they escape

into the hills

Relax

stop pushing

let it go

let it all go

There is a trap door

in the top

of every second

Lift

Enter

The Gods will pour

cups of quiet

tap the drum of peace

fish diamonds from your soul

and

kiss the scales

off your eyes

till

you see

this is the only place

your enemy

time

cannot enter

to steal

your sunshine

and

your love.

Life is Poetry

What Would a Low Density Lifestyle World Look Like? That’s the question that this few week series has been based on.

I’ve written articles during this series on peace and war being over, on being bold, on listening to your heart and following your creative pulse, on working together to make this a better world, and on people who are helping to make this a better world.

Ultimately, a Low Density Lifestyle World is one in which our heart and soul resonate with the poetic lyricism that fuels the universe.

When we feel lighter of body, mind and spirit, that is when we are living a Low Density Lifestyle; and when we feel lighter, we are truly poetry in motion.

With that being said, today’s article is about poetry and is guest written by Susan Jefts.

Susan Jefts, MS, is a poet who lives in Saratoga Springs, NY. She runs writing groups in therapeutic and community settings using poetry as a tool for exploring life issues and healing.

Susan teaches writing and advises students for Empire State College and has had her poetry published in several journals and books regionally and throughout the country, including Big City Lit, Parnassus Literary Journal, The Hudson River Anthology and Metroland, among others.

Her website is www.saratogapoetryroom.com.

Meeting a Poem

First, something catches. The movement of a word on your tongue or a spark from its flight through your throat. Often it’s not the one you’d expect, not what you were thinking about or where you were going that day. But there it is, like beautiful music or a call from a cherished friend. And so you listen.

To know what a poem is about for you, look to the images that most speak to you, the ones that linger in your ear or on your tongue, or hover in your soul. It is after all images that feed the soul. And it is in metaphor, the heart of poetry, where psyche (soul) and soma (body) meet. Metaphor comes from a Greek word meaning to transport or carry across. We can be transported by poetry, if we are willing, to new levels of experience and insight, places where the soul and spirit are more closely involved.

The following poem How it is by Peter Everwine, is one I’ve had in my favorite poem folder for years. I knew upon first reading, that this poem said far more than its ten short lines and that I would return to it again and again. I find it an especially rich antidote for a busy life, as it speaks to the reader of what returning means, of what actually being in our life means.

This is how it is –
One turns away
and walks out into the evening.
There is a white horse on the prairie, or a river
that slips away among dark rocks.
One speaks, or is about to speak,
not that it matters.
What matters is this –
It is evening.
I have been away a long time.

There is a strong presence from the start of the poem of something beyond words and feeling. And a strong sense of seeing, a kind that only evening allows, as it is a time of day for nuance, both visually and emotionally. What is described is a white horse on the prairie. But right next to that is a river “that slips away among dark rocks.” Right away, we are presented with contrasting images and a sense of paradox, with the first image suggesting stillness and permanence and the second one, movement and impermanence.

Soon we know we are not in a world of ordinary language but it feels very real; the language is open and encompassing, and we are pulled into its richness and wholeness. Good poetry is like that; it allows room for everything. And as in many poems, there is more going on here than first meets the eye. Listen for what is going on for you. Is it the image of the white horse that speaks to you, the dark rocks, or the river that slips away? Perhaps it is the “turning away,” or a subtle feeling of the poem that speaks to you. What is it about that image? Pay attention to the ones that speak to you, as they are likely speaking to your soul.

While there may be a sense of leave taking in the poem, there is also a sense of opening to new awareness. The speaker at first appears to be turning away from something and finding escape or solace in nature. But soon we see that he is really returning. Re-turning to a kind of purity, to something beyond words and images. Returning to what is essential.

And in the midst of all this turning, there is a sense of embracing and of being embraced. “I have been away a long time,” he says. We almost wonder and know, both at the same time where he has been and what he is returning to. The specifics of those places will vary for each of us, as will the messages they carry. Where have you been, and what are you returning to?

Work and Feeding the Soul as a Path to Happiness: What Poets Tell Us

In yesterday’s article I discussed Happiness and Your Job.

In that article was an excellent quote from Academy Award winning editor and sound designer Walter Murch, who discussed happiness in regards to work.

Murch said how the key to finding happiness in the work you do is to remember the thing that gave you the most happiness when you were between ages 9 and 11, and to do something that is a reflection of that thing.

When we were younger, our innate happiness and joy easily rose to the surface, and we effortlessly did those things that brought us joy. But over the years, as time goes by, we become more cultured and self-conscious and we get away from that.

We then forget that our soul’s yearning for deep happiness is rooted in doing things that feed and nourish the soul.

In other words, we are happiest when we do work that is an expression of who we truly are.

To understand who we truly are requires reaching in and touching the poetic nature of the soul.

Poets have the ability to write about the soul’s yearnings in a lyrical way that can reach in and resonate with the soul’s poetic desires.

What can we learn from poets about this? Let’s take a look:

Dante:
In the middle of the road of my life
I awoke in a dark wood
Where the true way was wholly lost.

Pablo Neruda:
I didn’t know what to say, my mouth
could not speak,
my eyes could not see
and something ignited in my soul,
fever or unremembered wings
and I went my own way,
deciphering that burning fire
and I wrote the first bare line,
bare, without substance, pure
foolishness,
pure wisdom
of one who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened and open.

David Whyte:
the blades flash
lifting veils of spray as the bow rears
terrified then falls

with five miles to go
of open ocean
the eyes pierce the horizon

the kayak pulls round
like a pony held by unseen reins
shying out of the ocean

and the spark behind fear
recognized as life
leaps into flame

*
Always this energy smoulders inside
when it remains unlit
the body fills with dense smoke.

William Blake:
I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen:
A chapel was built in the midst,
where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turned to this Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be,
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds
and binding with briars my joys and desires.

William Blake:
So he took his wings and fled;
Then the morn blushed rosy red;
I dried my tears and armed my fears
With ten thousand shields and spears.

Soon my angel came again;
I was arm’d, he came in vain;
For the time of youth was fled
And grey hairs were on my head.

Antonio Machado:
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that there was a fiery sun here in my heart
It was fiery because it gave warmth
as if from a hearth
and it was sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Rainer Maria Rilke:
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.

T. S. Eliot:
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope,
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing: wait
without
love
for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet
faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the
waiting.

Derek Walcott:
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Antonio Machado:
Last night, as I was sleeping
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.