silent friend of many distances

  

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I've always loved friends of the Way
Always held them dear

Meeting a stranger with silent springs
Greeting a guest talking zen

Talking about mysteries on a moonlit night
Searching for truth until dawn

When the tracks of our inventions
disappear and we see who we really are.


—Han Shan
Cold Mountain

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Let’s be friendly and open together
I’ll give you my well-filled life

and you give me a view of the planets
No one exactly dies
Rather souls change their looks and address.


—Mahmoud Darwish
John Berger amd Rema Hammami version
Mural

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Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space.
Let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night. What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.
Move through transformation, out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

Be the mystery.

In this uncontainable night,

be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,

say to the silent earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am.

—Rainer Maria Rilke
The Sonnets to Orpheus

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