.
All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
—William Carlos Williams
.
I thought that the world was a vast system of signs,
a conversation between giant beings.
My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue.
What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable?
Who speaks the word?
To whom is it spoken?
—Octavio Paz
Eliot Weinberger translation
Heaven and Earth are impartial;
they treat all of creation as straw dogs.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she treats everyone like a straw dog.
The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows;
it is empty, yet has not lost its power.
The more it is used, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you comprehend.
It is better not to speak of things you do not understand.
—Lao Tzu
from the Tao Te Ching
J. H. McDonald version
.
What I like about the trees is how
they do not talk about the failure of their parents
and what I like about the grasses is that
they are not grasses in recovery
and what I like about the flowers is
that they are not flowers in need of
empowerment or validation. They sway
upon their thorny stems
as if whatever was about to happen next tonight
was sure to be completely interesting.
—Tony Hoagland
