unask

 

knives

 

V
Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
Nor the chisels of the long streets,
Nor the mallets of the domes
And high towers,
Can carve
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.

VI
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses --
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --
Rationalists would wear sombreros.

From Wallace Stevens, Six Significant Landscapes

 

 

 

pearl

 

This poem is about the wordless, the beautiful.
What, do you need a manual, to feel the heat of the sun?

Look, look at this beauty. it has no reason.
Feel its blessing. nothing is as good as this.

Perhaps this poem is a miracle. Perhaps it's a trick.
It was written by the inside voice.

No-one can describe what that voice knows; not even me.
Nobody knows which shell hides the pearl.

 

Hafiz, retranslated by Tom Davis