The Six Ways

Hell:
Bright autumn moon --
pond snails crying
in the saucepan.

 

The Hungry Ghosts:
Flowers scattering --
the water we thirst for
far off, in the mist.

 

Animals:
In the falling of petals
they see no Buddha,
no Law.

 

Malignant Spirits:
In the shadow of blossoms,
voice against voice,
the gamblers.

 

Men:
We humans --
squirming around
among the blossoming flowers.

 

The Heaven Dwellers:
A hazy day --
even the gods
must feel listless.

 

~ Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), whose name means "a single bubble in steeping tea" is famous for his hundreds of haiku and poems about the smallest of life's creatures -- the tiniest insects.
Above he wrote of the 6 realms of existence and rebirth in Buddhist cosmology.

THE SOUL LIVES CONTENTED

"Woman Through A Window"

Topkapi Palace
Istanbul. Turkey. January 6th 2016

The soul lives contented
by listening,
if it wants to change
into the beauty of
terrifying shapes,
it tries to speak.

That’s why
you will not sing,
afraid as you are
of who might join with you.

The voice hesitant,
and her hand trembling
in the dark for yours.

She touches your face
and says your name
in the same instant.

The one you refused to say,
over and over,
the one you refused to say.

The Soul Lives Contented: in
‘River Flow:
New and Selected Poems’
©David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

The older I become

"The older I become,

the more I sense,

the less I speak,

the more I pray —

in ever so many ways."

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, The Virgin of Guadalupe & the Memorae Prayer
http://kaykeys.net/spirit/mary/memorae.html

Farewell

Art : Christian Schloe, Farewell

Out of my deeper heart a bird rose and flew skyward.
Higher and higher did it rise,
yet larger and larger did it grow.
At first it was but like a swallow,
then a lark,
then an eagle,
then as vast as a spring cloud,
and then it filled the starry heavens.
Out of my heart a bird flew skyward.
And it waxed larger as it flew.
Yet it left not my heart.

~ Kahlil Gibran
from The Forerunner, His Parables and Poems

THE SHELL

 

THE SHELL

An open sandy shell

on the beach

empty but beautiful

like a memory

of a protected previous self.

The most difficult griefs,

ones in which

we slowly open

to a larger sea, a grander

sweep that washes

all our elements apart.

So strange the way

we are larger

in grief

than we imagined

we deserved or could claim

and when loss floods

into us

like the long darkness it is

and the old nurtured hope

is drowned again,

even stranger then

at the edge of the sea,

to feel the hand of the wind

laid on our shoulder,

reminding us

how death grants

a fierce and fallen freedom

away from the prison

of a constant

and continued presence,

how in the end

those who have left us

might no longer need us,

with all our tears

and our much needed

measures of loss

and that their own death

is as personal

and private

as that life of theirs

which you never really knew,

and another disturbing thing,

that exultation

is possible

without them.

And they for themselves

in fact

are glad to have let go

of all the stasis

and the enclosure

and the need for them to live

like some prisoner

that you only wanted

to remain incurious

and happy in your love,

never looking for the key,

never wanting to

turn the lock and walk

away

like the wind,

unneedful of you,

ungovernable,

unnamable,

free.

THE SHELL.

From RIVER FLOW: New and Selected Poems

© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

I was made to be here...

Why then, have to be human?

Oh not because happiness exists,

Not out of curiosity . . .

But because being here means so much;

because everything here,

vanishing so quickly, seems to need us,

and strangely keeps calling to us . . . To have been

here, once, completely, even if only once,

to have been at one with the earth –

this is beyond undoing.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

A surface, an image, a past.

Art : Matthew Davis

You will walk toward the mirror,
closer and closer, then flow
into the glass. You will disappear
some day like that, being
more real, more true, at the last.

You learn what you are, but slowly,
a baby, a boy, a man,
a self often shattered, and pieces
put together again till the end:
you halt, the glass opens.

A surface, an image, a past.
- William Stafford

Old Story

Art : Winston Chmielinski

You don't want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don't want to tell it, I want to listen


to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it's the same old story -
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.

- Mary Oliver from her poem Dogfish

The Rain Spoke to Me

Photo : Igor Zenin

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,


what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again


in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,


smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches


and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing


under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,


and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment


my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars


and the soft rain —
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.



~ Mary Oliver

 

Autumn



Monet

"Deep in the mountains --
falling into my heart
autumn streams."

~ Shinkei (1406-75), Japanese renga Poet

Lisbon

Lisbon

 

 

Everynight I say a prayer

Look at me: nobody cares

Just a mirror, passing by...

Looked inside:

I've lost my pride...

 

 

Stay with me not for so long

It's alright: no needs, no hope

Such a miracle, looking back...

Time gone by, and life wasn't bad...

 

 

Lord, light my way

Fill these withered, careless hands...

 

 

Oh, skies are falling down

Skies are falling down

Oh, skies are falling down

Skies are falling down

 

 

See the birds are back...

At the docks and everywhere

Here in Lisbon, realized

This whole world so strange and divine

 

 

Lord, light my way

Fill these withered, careless hands...

 

 

Oh, skies are falling down

Skies are falling down

Oh, skies are falling down

Skies are falling down

 

 

nada & nada

 

 

 

What was this?

 

 

Farkasréti temetö, Budapest

 

 

 

 

What was this? 

 

Being without you

totally without you

 

and slowly

starting to forget

how it was to be with you

totally with you

 

and then half

half with and half without

 

and finally

totally without

 

 

 

Erich Fried

Translation by Günter Ehweiner

 

 

 

Seasons greetings

Joseph's Lullaby

Sleep now, little one.

I will watch while you and your mother sleep.

I wish I could do more.

This straw is not good enough for you.

Back in Nazareth I'll make a proper bed for you

of seasoned wood, smooth, strong, well-pegged,...

A bed fit for a carpenter's son.

Just wait till we get back to Nazareth.

I'll teach you everything I know.

You'll learn to choose the cedar wood, eucalyptus and fir.

You'll learn to use the drawshave, axe and saw.

Your arms will grow strong, your hands rough - like these.

You will bear the pungent smell of new wood

and wear shavings and sawdust in your hair.

You'll be a man whose life centres

on hammer and nails and Wood.

But for now,

sleep, little Jesus, sleep.
 

 -- Ron Klug




call me

 

 

 

If one day you feel like crying ...

Call me.

I don't promise you that ...

I will make you laugh

But I can cry with you

 

~

 

If one day you want to run away -

Don't be afraid to call me.

I don't promise to ask you to stop,

But I can run with you.

 

~

 

If one day you don't want to listen to

anybody;

Call me and ...

I promise to be very quiet.

 

~

 

But ...

If one day you call and there is no answer ...

 

~

 

Come fast to see me ...

Perhaps I need you ...

 

 

 

 

 . . .  nada . . .