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The mystic dances in the sun,
hearing music others don't. "Insanity," they say, those others. If so, it's a very gentle, nourishing sort.
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As we awaken every day with the full knowledge of the Anthropocene, the temptation to despair may be strong. I ask myself, what would I like to be doing on the last day, and I think, I would like to be making art. I also might want to read the poetry of Robert Lax again. I've been thinking often lately of this poem. Number 26, from A Thing That Is.  What is missing
in me can fill the Milky Way. My life has more locks than keys. Silence is making me deaf. In a dream I’m pouring over a book I cannot read. When I can’t sleep I still have my telescope. David Westendorp Rabbi Jacob used to say: Better a single moment of awakening in this world than eternity in the world to come. And better a single moment of inner peace in the world to come than eternity in this world. Why? A single moment of awakening in this world is living in this world with full attention. The two are one, flip sides of a coin forever tumbling and never caught. Pirke Avot 4:22  P - 174 "I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I needed it" --John Cage "If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." --John Cage. "The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason." --John Cage. "Rather than create meaning in the traditional way, as something for the reader to absorb -- one isolated ego moving thoughts over into another isolated ego -- the poem becomes a meditative practice, an emptying of the mind, a return to the interior wild." -- David Hinton, The Wilds of Poetry   Ordered this book yesterday from bookstore.com, by the new poet laureate of the US. Very eager to see it!
A Solstice Blessing
As night stretches here, day contracts elsewhere. And in their night, we are bathed in light. In all nights there is light; in long days there can be ache too. For you, we call the sun to stand still a while, and the moon too, and stars, and the waters and the heavens. Hells as well — just for a second; just for a breath. May that breath rest you. And may each breath rest you, as it has until now, and now and now. This one, after that one, after that one after that. Sit quietly behind your wooden door:
Spring will come again. 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 |
Doug WestendorpI have written some poetry, and translated a few short poems from the ancient Chinese. Archives
August 2023
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