Sit quietly behind your wooden door:
Spring will come again.
Spring will come again.
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By Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968) Wind and a bobwhite And the afternoon sun. By ceasing to question the sun I have become light, Bird and wind. My leaves sing. I am earth, earth All these lighted things Grow from my heart. A tall, spare pine Stands like the initial of my first Name when I had one. When I had a spirit, When I was on fire When this valley was Made out of fresh air You spoke my name In naming Your silence: O sweet, irrational worship! I am earth, earth My heart's love Bursts with hay and flowers. I am a lake of blue air In which my own appointed place Field and valley Stand reflected. I am earth, earth Out of my grass heart Rises the bobwhite. Out of my nameless weeds His foolish worship. In the Dark of Things
I love to remain In the dark of things, in their secrets. I love to fathom creation, To flee like a belief, Like exiled art Like an unnamed obscurity, without certainty-- In every tomorrow I’m born anew. Adonis Poetry is most deeply a way of doing philosophy -- not as mere juggling of abstractions, but as lived and felt experience. --David Hinton in The Wilds of Poetry
Taking the form of haiku and making it... something different.
One of these days I One of these days I will be One of these days I Every time you sit you will find your life begins to feel opaque, as if everything that has ever happened to you is apparent and true, even as the world around you begins to appear more transparent, as if life itself was some sort of magic act, conceived only for the purpose of delighting the senses. You will find this paradox absurd, even hilarious, a wonderous gift of mercy, and you will laugh often and with deep gratitude.
Every time you sit will feel like the first time and the last time, as if you had never been there before and yet had never truly been anywhere else. You will notice your breath is not your own breath, and yet has never been anyone else’s. Your cushion under you will feel like the safest place in the world even though your entire body is on fire. All the world around you will appear to be in blossom, while you, and you alone, draw life from the world’s taproot. Foundling pinprick bug,
at rest on my summer wrist, welcome home, new life. The Slower I Walk
The slower I walk The more I see The more I see The deeper I feel The deeper I feel The more I see The more I see The slower I walk Doug Westendorp 3/21 Bouquet of Light
Tap pity tap pity tap pity Ding Typing at the dining room table A bouquet of light Has been with me all night Typing at the dining room table djw April 2020 |
Doug WestendorpI have written some poetry, and translated a few short poems from the ancient Chinese. Archives
February 2022
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