unask

 

like the water

 

Like the water
of a deep stream,
love is always too much.
We did not make it.
Though we drink till we burst,
we cannot have it all,
or want it all.
In its abundance
it survives our thirst.

We enter,
willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.

 

Wendell Berry

 

 

your choice

 

be drunk. always.
that's it, right there:
the only answer.
don't feel
the terrible weight
of time on your back
bending you down, bending you down.
drunk on what?
do you have to you ask?
wine! poetry! goodness! your choice!
just hang one on.
and if some time
in a stately home
or on the hillside grass
or moping in your room
you sober up
and lose the high
then: ask the wind
the waves
the stars
a bird
a clock
anything that runs
or rolls
or sings
or speaks
just ask: what time is it?
and the wind
the waves
the stars
the bird
the clock
will say to you
it's time to get drunk, fool!
do you want to be time's drudge?
get drunk
non-stop
on wine, poems, goodness--
your choice.

 

Beaudelaire, Enivrez-vous, transl. Tom Davis

 

 

the scarlet sky

 

when a child leaves the breast
for solid food
it does not look back
it grows

the seed is nourished by earth
then spreads towards the sun

so: taste the scarlet sky
open towards wisdom
hide no longer in yourself

you came here like a star
that had no name
enter the night sky
be one again with all
the nameless galaxies

 

Tom Davis, after Rumi, A star without a name

 

 

crystal

 

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

 

From Billy Collins, Litany.

 

 

a lion of courage

 

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox:

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver, When death comes.

 

 

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