"O World, strangled and collapsed, where are the strong white teeth?
O World, sinking with the silver balls and corks and life preservers, where are the rosy scalps?
O glab and glairy, O glabrous world now chewed to a frazzle, under what dead moon do you lie cold and gleaming?"
- from The Fourteenth Ward by Henry Miller.
don't go to sleep
this night
one night is worth
a hundred thousand souls
the night is generous
it can give you
a gift of the full moon
it can bless your soul
with endless treasure
- Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi
translated by Nader Khalili
from Ghazal 947
Fountain of Fire
I'm working on the world,
revised, improved edition,
featuring fun for fools,
blues for brooders,
combs for bald pates,
tricks for old dogs.
Here's one chapter: The Speech
of Animals and Plants.
Each species comes, of course,
with its own dictionary.
Even a simple "Hi there,"
when traded with a fish,
make both the fish and you
feel quite extraordinary.
The long-suspected meanings
of rustlings, chirps, and growls!
Soliloquies of forests!
The epic hoot of owls!
Those crafty hedgehogs drafting
aphorisms after dark,
while we blindly believe
they are sleeping in the park!
Time (Chapter Two) retains
its sacred right to meddle
in each earthly affair.
Still, time's unbounded power
that makes a mountain crumble,
moves seas, rotates a star,
won't be enough to tear
lovers apart: they are
too naked, too embraced,
too much like timid sparrows.
Old age is, in my book,
the price that felons pay,
so don't whine that it's steep:
you'll stay young if you're good.
Suffering (Chapter Three)
doesn't insult the body.
Death? It comes in your sleep,
exactly as it should.
When it comes, you'll be dreaming
that you don't need to breathe;
that breathless silence is
the music of the dark
and it's part of the rhythm
to vanish like a spark.
Only a death like that. A rose
could prick you harder, I suppose;
you'd feel more terror at the sound
of petals falling to the ground.
Only a world like that. To die
just that much. And to live just so.
And all the rest is Bach's fugue, played
for the time being
on a saw.
- Wislawa Szymborska Read more…
I wonder what would happen if
I treated everyone like I was in love
with them, whether I like them or not
and whether they respond or not and no matter
what they say or do to me and even if I see
things in them which are ugly twisted petty
cruel vain deceitful indifferent, just accept
all that and turn my attention to some small
weak tender hidden part and keep my eyes on
that until it shines like a beam of light
like a bonfire I can warm my hands by and trust
it to burn away all the waste which is not
never was my business to meddle with.
- Derek Tasker Read more…
Moon reflection
River crackles
Mountain silent
*
Light of moon
Breaks mountain shadow
Dances on river
*
Crescent sends yellow
Music dancing over river
Flickering into darkness
*
Bamboo baskets across her
Shoulders
Pacing strong
Steady across a long bridge
Toward mountain home
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