unask

 

Geometry

 

I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.

As the walls clear themselves of everything
but transparency, the scent of carnations
leaves with them. I am out in the open

and, above, the windows have hinged into butterflies,
sunlight glinting where they've intersected.
They are going to some point true and unproven.

 

Rita Dove

 

 

Helga

 

THE WISHES on this child’s mouth
Came like snow on marsh cranberries;
The tamarack kept something for her;
The wind is ready to help her shoes.
The north has loved her; she will be
A grandmother feeding geese on frosty
Mornings; she will understand
Early snow on the cranberries
Better and better then.

 

Carl Sandburg

 

 

where everything is music

 

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

 

Rumi

 

 

 

scamel

there is a new entry in our scamel blog.

 

 

 

tunnel ceaselessly

 

I think all the time about invisible work.
About the young mother on Welfare
I interviewed years ago,
who said, "It's hard.
You bring him to the park,
run rings around yourself keeping him safe,
and there's no one
to say what a good job you're doing,
how you were patient and loving
for the thousandth time even though you had a headache."
And I, who am used to feeling sorry for myself
because I am lonely,
when all the while,
as the Chippewa poem says, I am being carried
by great winds across the sky,
thought of the invisible work that stitches up the world day and night,
the slow, unglamorous work of healing,
the way worms in the garden
tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe
and bees ransack this world into being,
while owls and poets stalk shadows,
our loneliest labors under the moon.

There are mothers
for everything, and the sea
is a mother too,
whispering and whispering to us
long after we have stopped listening.
I stopped and let myself lean
a moment, against the blue
shoulder of the air. The work
of my heart
is the work of the world's heart.
There is no other art.

From Alison Luterman, Invisible work.

 

 

spring fever

 

Today, look: another day. Waking, wide open,
Afraid. Don't dive into the library,
Into yet another book! Reach for your guitar,
Let love, let beauty, be what it is we do:
You don't have to fly abroad, in order to kneel
And kiss the tarmac!

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going in and out of the door
where the two worlds touch.
The door is right there, look, it's wide open!
Don't go back to sleep.

I long to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Hearing this, love runs up to me, shouting:
'What a bargain, buy, buy!'

Daylight, and the dancing dust motes.
The universe dances too; and so do our souls;
dancing with you, feet flying, they dance.
Can you see it, as I whisper in your ear?

All day and night, music,
one flute,
quiet, bright.
If it fades, we fade.

 

Rumi, transl. Tom Davis

 

 

the four great vows

 

however innumerable beings are, I vow to save them

however inexhaustible the passions are, I vow to extinguish them

however immeasurable the Dharmas are, I vow to master them

however incomparable the Buddha-truth is, I vow to attain it

 

Transl. J. D. Salinger

 

 

the guest house

 

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

 

Rumi