unask

 

 

cats

 

those who love greatly and those who think deeply
both, in life's autumn, love; and love
cats, for their sweetness, their power, who are
the house's honour, and who, like them,
appreciate warmth, and sit calmly, for hours.

Tom Davis, after Baudelaire, Les Chats

 

 

 

 

 

send sunflowers!

 

Send sunflowers!
With my turkey-bone whistle
I am calling the birds
To sing upon the sunflowers.
For when the clouds hear them singing
They will come quickly,
And rain will fall upon our fields.
Send sunflowers!

Amy Lowell

 

 

 

 

 

entrances

 

Have you ever thought, the world has two languages? And each of these languages, is love? No, well, I thought not. But I have.

Think about the flow of circumstance, the ducking and diving, the endless chat of this and that, winding like a river, a dazzling river; detail, instance, the roughness of surfaces, the blueness of morning, a feather that tickles the skin, the eye of a blackbird. The language of this particularity is poetry, isn’t it, chattering, dancing, the wordplay that makes the play of things make sense.

And then underneath, down there deep in the scheme of things, there’s the language that makes it all work, the dark design, the patterning. So beautiful, don’t you think, the intricate simplicity, underlying, organising, orderly. And the language of that, of course, is number.

So there you are, you see, it’s quite simple, really, two languages, number and poetry, two different ways that love shapes the world, in its deep meaning that moves and shakes it, and in its surface dance, that shimmers, that moves, that is shaken.

And I think the best life, really, would be the life lived according to that love, don’t you, embracing both, bringing them together, as love does in its wonderful, constant, endless invention of all that there is.

from the play Entrances, by Deirdre Burton and Tom Davis

 

 

 

 

 

scamel

there is a new entry in our scamel blog.

 

 

 

 

the white flower

 

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

Margaret Atwood

 

 

 

 

watchful

 

If you value yourself
watch that self, carefully
the wise should be watchful.

Self must govern self
Who else would do this work?
If the self is well controlled
you have found a good master.

It is your self that does wrong
it is your self that suffers
it is your self that purifies;
no-one can do it for you.

the Buddha

 

 

 

 

burning

 

Love will not be glad
Until I am burned up.
My heart is the home of love
Burn it! love says.
No, no, I protest;
Burn it down, says love.

I will be a candle
The more I burn, the brighter the flame.

Tonight, i will not sleep
I will look for those lovers
Whom love has driven to drink
Who burn in union with the One.

Rumi, Mathnawi VI, 617-623, transl. Tom Davis

 

 

 

 

I wake to sleep

 

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Theodore Roethke