We all know a circle has no ending
Yet on the surface of this large circle we stop and gather
In this age the greatest homecoming has commenced
Loving you returns me to the realness of my being
In light of this (my true soul) a day lasts only moments
Yet no matter how long the night is measured more light will appear
These moments of revelation are weighed by a lifetime of experience
But simple honesty causes them to slip through our fingers
…as They create new circles
There are whole worlds among those who walk the earth
And in those yet more worlds
All that is greed, destruction, and gluttony have gone their own way
No one is a prisoner
We are only travelers who have long searched for a cure outside ourselves
We have lost sight of the pureness of soul
We have forgotten charity to our own soul
Guarding love by lovers has been mistaken for jealousy
Fear of unfaithfulness has destroyed many families
Here is the Earth, Gods gift to man
She yields the harvest we have planted
And some point upward in blame claiming
It is the storms, it is the rain, and it is the wind that has ruined this great homecoming
Standing holding grief covered handkerchiefs over their eyes
For the sky does not love the time of harvest
We do not love our homes flooded
Yet
How long mankind has been content to drown in floods of their own emotion
Pouring them out on each other
Their heads filled with nonsense
The daylight of our soul has grown and the hours of revelation have increased.
Through God we
Mira;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3DH7vRUHRk
Chraeloos: The Cinnamon Peeler
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.
Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to you hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.
I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
--your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...
When we swam once
I touched you in the water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
you climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume
and knew
what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.
You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
Peeler's wife. Smell me.
Michael Ondaatje
[16:54] Chraeloos: The Other Side of the River
by Xi Chuan
translated by Lucas Klein
On the other side of the river
there is a flame
a flame
burning May
burning August
when the pagoda tree blooms, the professor with lentigo bows to her
when orange blossoms fall, an heir of graceful demeanor waves to her
and smiles
yet on the other side of the river she remains, still burning
like the underwater glistening of red coral
like a red straw hat blown away in the breeze
when I saw her yesterday she was totally still, looking to the sky
and today she lowers her head to watch the river
if it were overcast and raining, what would she do there on that side
of the river?
—her flame would not go out
a poet looks to her
a farmer looks to her
a Dialectical Materialist looks to her
she is on the other side of the river, burning
burning May
burning August
Mira: LOST
Stand still. the trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Whenever you are, is called Here,
And you must treat it as powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it, and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers.
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or bush does, is lost to you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. the forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
David Wagoner
No comments :
Post a Comment