there are moments in moist love when heaven is jealous of what we on earth can do. —Hafiz

 

.

.

 

A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map led him here. 

Or perhaps memory. Once, long ago, in the sun,
When the first snow fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,
Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast of motion. 

He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

—Czesław Miłosz

This Only
Robert Hass version

 

.

This world is just a little place, 

just the red in the sky, before the sun rises, 

so let us keep fast hold of hands, 

that when the birds begin, 

none of us be missing.

—Emily Dickinson

 

.

glimpsey

.

The ancient Druids are said to have taken a special interest in in-between things like mistletoe, which is neither quite a plant nor quite a tree, and mist, which is neither quite a rain nor quite air, and dreams, which are neither quite waking nor quite sleep. 

They believed that in such things as those they were able to glimpse the mystery of the two worlds at once.

—Frederick Buechner
Whistling in the Dark

.

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.


—Czesław Miłosz
The Way One Looks At Distant Things
Robert Haas version

.

the invisible walls,

the rotten masks that divide one man

from another, one man from himself,

they crumble for one enormous moment and we glimpse the unity that we lost, the desolation of being man, and all its glories,

sharing bread and sun and death,

the forgotten astonishment of being alive

—Octavio Paz

Sunstone (Piedra de Sol) excerpt

.

listen

    

.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us 
how difficult it is to remain just one person,

for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, 
and invisible guests come in and out at will.


—Czesław Miłosz

.

As soon as one speaks, as soon as one enters the medium of language, one loses that very singularity. Once I speak, I am never and no longer myself, alone and unique.

—Jacques Derrida
The Gift of Death

.

Speech is not of the tongue but of the heart. The tongue is merely the instrument with which one speaks. 

He who is dumb is dumb in his heart, not in his tongue. 

As you speak, so is your heart.

—Paracelsus

  

.

 

a brighter word than bright

   

.

Words are substance strange. Speak one and the air ripples into another's ears. Write one and the eye laps it up. But the sense transmutes, and the spoken word winds through the ear's labyrinth into a sense that is no longer the nerve's realm. 

The written word unfolds behind the eye into the world, world's image, and the imagination sees as the eye cannot see - thoughtfully.


—Dan Beachy-Quick

.

A book is a physical object in a world of physical objects. It is a set of dead symbols. And then the right reader comes along, and the words—or rather the poetry behind the words, for the words themselves are mere symbols—spring to life, and we have a resurrection of the word.

—Jorge Luis Borges
This Craft of Verse

.

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent: 

a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us, so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out 

and stood in the light, lashing his tail.

—Czesław Miłosz
Ars Poetica

.

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.

—Rumi

.

question

.

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.

That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word 'is'
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.

Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore.
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.


—Czesław Miłosz
Robert Hass version

.

Love (Rescue)

    

.

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.


—Czesław Miłosz
The Way One Looks At Distant Things
Robert Haas version

.

a song on the end of the world

.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now. 

As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now. 

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he is much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.


—Czesław Miłosz

.