unask

 

In the Seven Woods

I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods
Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees
Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away
The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness
That empty the heart.

I am contented, for I know that Quiet
Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart
Among pigeons and bees.

WB Yeats, In the Seven Woods
August 1902

 

 

amaryllis

Months ago the gigantic onion of a bulb
half above the soil
stuck out its green tongue
and slowly, day by day,
the flower itself entered our world,

closed, like hands that captured a moth,
then open, as eyes open,
and the amaryllis, seeing us,
was somehow undiscouraged.
It stands before us now

as we eat our soup;
you pour a little of your drinking water
into its saucer, and a few crumbs
of fragrant earth fall
onto the tabletop.

Connie Wanek

 

 

the ladder

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way:
anyone who understands them eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them -- as steps -- to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder
after he has climbed up it.)

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus

 

 

moon

At the twilight, a moon appeared in the sky;
Then it landed on earth to look at me.

Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey;
That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky.

I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore;
For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul.

The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;
The ship of my existence drowned in that sea.

Rumi

 

 

two teachers

in the privacy of my head
I talk to two teachers
god and dog

my god teacher
teaches me how to
lead and guide

my dog teacher
teaches me how to
follow and serve

both my teachers
are very
patient

Tom Davis, after Sri Chinmoy

 

 

in time of daffodils

in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me

e e cummings

 

 

the mountains

The Mountains stood in Haze --
The Valleys stopped below
And went or waited as they liked
The River and the Sky.

So soft upon the Scene
The Act of evening fell
We felt how neighborly a Thing
Was the Invisible.

Emily Dickinson