on the road home

 

.

It was when I said,

“There is no such thing as the truth,”

That the grapes seemed fatter.

The fox ran out of his hole.

You….You said,

“There are many truths,

But they are not parts of a truth.” 

Then the tree, at night, began to change,

Smoking through green and smoking blue.

We were two figures in a wood.

We said we stood alone.

It was when I said,

“Words are not forms of a single word.

In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.

The world must be measured by eye.”

It was when you said,

“The idols have seen lots of poverty,

Snakes and gold and lice,

But not the truth;”

It was at that time, that the silence was largest,

And longest, the night was roundest.

The fragrance of the autumn warmest,

Closest, and strongest.

—Wallace Stevens

 .

virtue

.

largerloves

.

before the names

 

.

I dream of the silence
the day before Adam came
to name the animals,

The gold skins newly dropped
from God's bright fingers, still
implicit with the light. 

A day like this, perhaps:
a winter whiteness
haunting the creation,

as we are sometimes
haunted by the space
we fill, or by the forms

we might have known
before the names,
beyond the gloss of things.

—John Burnside

.

 

white fox image

 

two tanka

 

.

From outside my house,

only the faint distant sound

of gentle breezes

wandering through bamboo leaves

in the long evening silence.

Late evening finally

comes: I unlatch the door

and quietly

await the one

who greets me in my dreams.


–Otomo No Yakamochi

. 
images - Nordin Seruyan,
central Borneo
. 

just sit

 

.

We just sit.

It is like something happening in the great sky.

Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn’t care.

That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us.


—Shunryu Suzuki

.

question

 

.

What happens when your soul
begins to awaken
your eyes
and your heart
and the cells of your body
to the great Journey of Love?

First there is wonderful laughter
and probably precious tears

and a hundred sweet promises
and those heroic vows
no one can ever keep.

But still God is delighted and amused
you once tried to be a saint.

What happens when your soul
begins to awake in this world

to our deep need to love

and serve the Friend?

Oh, the Beloved

will send you

one of his wonderful, wild companions –

Like Hafiz.

—Hafiz

.