Poem - Jorge Luis Borges

Used up by the years, my memory
loses its grip on words that I have vainly
repeated and repeated. My life in the same way
weaves and unweaves its weary history.

Then I tell myself: it must be that the soul
has some secret, sufficient way of knowing
that it is immortal, that its vast, encompassing
circle can take in all, can accomplish all.

Beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing,
the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.

 - Jorge Luis Borges

from Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf
translated by Alastair Reid  Read more…

draw now

"From the age of six, I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things.

When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the the age of seventy is not worth bothering with.

At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress.

At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself.

At one hundred, I shall be a marvelous artist.

At one hundred and ten, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.'"

 - Hokusai Katsushika  Read more…

The Tree and the sky

There's a tree walking around in the rain,
it rushes past us in the pouring grey.
It has an errand. It gathers life
out of the rain like a blackbird in an orchard.

When the rain stops so does the tree.
There it is, quiet on clear nights
waiting as we do for the moment
when the snowflakes blossom in space.

 - Tomas Tranströmer  Read more…

Nam Nam village

Away from the Nam Ou River down long dusty roads is a village of 100 people.

Forests, bamboo thatch homes, basket makers, mountains, rice paddies. 

Wild open and inviting.

Women weave. 

Up Nam Ou river

After polishing a manuscript for three months in a Lao garden he shifted north to familiar terrain.

Now he helps others develop English courage in a village along the Nam Ou. 

The world is a village.

Mountains, earth, sky and wide brown river. The rainy season means fast clouds, rising water.

It flows.

Life is a river. You cannot step in the same river twice.