04.30.07
The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older
than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.
On Yom Kippur in 1967…
by
On Yom Kippur in 1967, the Year of Forgetting, I put on
my dark holiday clothes and walked to the Old City of
Jerusalem.
For a long time I stood in front of an Arab’s hole-in-the-wall
shop,
not far from the Damascus Gate, a shop with
buttons and zippers and spools of thread
in every color and snaps and buckles.
A rare light and many colors, like an open Ark.
I told him in my heart that my father too
had a shop like this, with thread and buttons.
I explained to him in my heart about all the decades
and the causes and the events, why I am now here
and my father’s shop was burned there and he is buried here.
When I finished, it was time for the Closing of the Gates
prayer.
He too lowered the shutters and locked the gate
and I returned, with all the worshippers, home.
maryt
04.25.07
Mockingbirds
This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.
In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door
to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story–
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness
to be attentive–
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them–
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down–
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning–
whatever it was I said
I would be doing–
I was standing
at the edge of the field–
I was hurrying
through my own soul,
opening its dark doors–
I was leaning out;
I was listening.
Mary Oliver
04.23.07
A Dream of Trees
There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.
There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.
I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?
Mary Oliver
maryt
04.21.07
Pantheon fib
Pantheon Earth and Moon
Credit & Copyright: Soeren Dalsgaard
It’s
the
ocu
lus, the eye,
of the Pantheon,
not the night sky, nor moon in space.
Take a 360-degree tour of the Pantheon here.
maryt
The Buddha’s Last Instruction by Mary Oliver
“Make of yourself a light “
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal – a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I’m not needed
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince in the foothills of the Himalayas in what is now Nepal. He lived in the sixth century B.C. As a young man, he was disturbed by the suffering of humanity. So, he left his home and family and all his possessions behind at the age of 29 to discover the meaning of life, particularly its hardships. After six years of rigorous discipline and asceticism under the guidance of a number of spiritual teachers, he still hadn’t found what he was looking for. While traveling with a small group of fellow seekers, emaciated by fasting, he realized he would not reach an the understanding he sought by this means either. When a woman offered him food one day, he sat down and ate. Strengthened and grateful, he resolved to sit under a nearby tree, a kind of ficus, and meditate until he understood the meaning of life. He sat through the week, day and night, and on the eighth morning came the moment of realization that he had hungered for throughout his life.
maryt
04.16.07
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Hiroshige
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
or a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
maryt 
04.03.07
To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
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04.02.07
Happy April Fool’s Day
April Fool: A person successfully tricked on 1st April.
Fool: A person who acts unwisely or imprudently, a stupid person, a jester/clown. One who acts in a joking/teasing way.
Fool’s Cap: A cap with bells attached worn by jesters.
Act the Fool: Behave in a silly way.
Fool’s Errand: A fruitless venture.
Fool’s Gold: Iron pyrites, often mistaken for gold.
Fool’s Paradise: Happiness founded on a illusion.
Fool’s Parsley: A species of hemlock resembling parsley.
Playing the Fool: To act like the idiot or foolishly.
Tomfoolery: Foolish behaviour, nonsense.
Trompe-l’oeil: A still-life painting, designed to give a illusion of reality. Literally ‘deceives the eye’.
Foolery: Foolish behaviour/a foolish act.
Foolhardy: Rashly or foolishly bold, reckless.
“The first of April
is the day we remember
what we are the other 364 days of the year.”
~By Mark Twain~
maryt
