we are that

        

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We are the children of this beautiful planet that we have lately seen photographed from the moon.  

We are not delivered into it by some god, but have come forth from it.

We are its eyes and mind, its seeing and its thinking. 

And the earth, together with its sun, this light around which it flies like a moth, came forth, we are told, from a nebula; and that nebula, in turn, from space.

So that we are the mind, ultimately, of space …


—Joseph Campbell
Myths to Live By

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Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart 

whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. 

At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

—Plato

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As long as nothing can be known for sure

(no signals have been picked up yet),

as long as Earth is still unlike

the nearer and more distant planets,

as long as there’s neither hide nor hair

of other grasses graced by other winds,

of other treetops bearing other crowns,

other animals as well-grounded as our own,

as long as only the local echo

has been known to speak in syllables,

as long as we still haven’t heard the word

of better or worse mozarts,

platos, edisons, elsewhere,

as long as our inhuman crimes

are still committed only between humans,

as long as our kindness

is still incomparable,

peerless even in its imperfection,

as long as our heads packed with illusions

still pass for the only heads so packed,

as long as the roofs of our mouths alone

still raise voices to high heavens  

– let’s act like very special guests of honour

at the district firemen’s ball,

dance to the beat of the local oompah band

and pretend that it’s the ball

to end all balls.

I can’t speak for other –
for me this is misery and happiness enough:

just this sleepy backwater
where even the stars have time to burn
while winking at us
unintentionally.


—Wislawa Szymborska
the ball

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zeroes on the loose

 

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Total awareness opens the way to understanding, and when any given situation is understood, the nature of all reality is made manifest, and the nonsensical utterances of the mystics are seen to be true, or at least as nearly true as it is possible for a verbal expression of the ineffable to be. 

One in all and all in One; samsara and nirvana are the same; multiplicity is unity, and unity is not so much one as not-two; all things are void, and yet all things are the Dharma — Body of the Buddha — and so on. So far as conceptual knowledge is concerned, such phrases are completely meaningless. 

It is only when there is understanding that they make sense. For when there is understanding, there is an experienced fusion of the End with the Means, of the Wisdom, which is the timeless realization of Suchness, with the Compassion which is Wisdom in action.

Love is the last word


—Aldous Huxley

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I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.

I prefer to knock on wood.

I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.

I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.


—Wislawa Szymborska

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The sun turns like a pinwheel. 

It counts 

its radiant, radioactive petals, ending always 

in ‘love,’ an odd number—


—Oni Buchanan

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the world is everywhere

   

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Commonplace miracle:
that so many commonplace miracles happen.

An ordinary miracle:
in the dead of night
the barking of invisible dogs.

One miracle out of many:
a small, airy cloud
yet it can block a large and heavy moon.

Several miracles in one:
an alder tree reflected in the water,
and that it's backwards left to right
and that it grows there, crown down
and never reaches the bottom,
even though the water is shallow.

An everyday miracle:
winds weak to moderate
turning gusty in storms.

First among equal miracles:
cows are cows.

Second to none:
just this orchard
from just that seed.

A miracle without a cape and top hat:
scattering white doves.

A miracle, for what else could you call it:
today the sun rose at three-fourteen
and will set at eight-o-one.

A miracle, less surprising than it should be:
even though the hand has fewer than six fingers,
it still has more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:
the world is everywhere.

An additional miracle, as everything is additional:
the unthinkable
is thinkable.


—Wislawa Szymborska
Joanna Trzeciak version

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listen

   

Paul Slyer photo

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Only 

That Illumined 

One 

Who keeps 

Seducing the formless into form 

Had the charm to win my 

Heart. 

Only a Perfect One 

Who is always 

Laughing at the word 

Two 

Can make you know 

Of 

Love.

—Hafiz

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It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck -- there was a forest.
You were in luck -- there were no trees.
You were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . .

So you're here? Still dizzy from
another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn't be more shocked or
speechless.

Listen, how your heart pounds inside me.


—Wislawa Szymborska

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view with a grain of sand

   

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We call it a grain of sand
but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.
It does just fine without a name,
whether general, particular,
permanent, passing,
incorrect or apt.

Our glance, our touch mean nothing to it.

It doesn't feel itself seen and touched.

And that it fell on the windowsill

is only our experience, not its.

For it it's no different than falling on anything else

with no assurance that it's finished falling

or that it's falling still.

The window has a wonderful view of a lake

but the view doesn't view itself.

It exists in this world

colorless, shapeless,

soundless, odorless, and painless.

The lake's floor exists floorlessly

and its shore exists shorelessly.

Its water feels itself neither wet nor dry

and its waves to themselves are neither singular nor plural,

They splash deaf to their own noise

on pebbles neither large nor small.

And all this beneath a sky by nature skyless

in which the sun sets without setting at all

and hides without hiding behind an unminding cloud.

The wind ruffles it, its only reason being

that it blows.

A second passes

A second second.

A third.

But they're three seconds only for us.

Time has passed like a courier with urgent news.

But that's just our simile.

The character's invented, his haste is make-believe,

his news inhuman.


—Wislawa Szymborska
Stanislaw Baraniczak and Clara Cavanagh translation

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among the multitudes

  

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I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other. 

I could have different 

ancestors, after all. 

I could have fluttered 

from another nest 

or crawled bescaled 

from another tree. 

Nature's wardrobe 

holds a fair 

supply of costumes: 

Spider, seagull, fieldmouse. 

each fits perfectly right off 

and is dutifully worn 

into shreds. 

I didn't get a choice either, 

but I can't complain. 

I could have been someone 

much less separate, 

someone from an anthill, shoal, or buzzing swarm, 

an inch of landscape ruffled by the wind. 

Someone much less fortunate, 

bred for my fur 

or Christmas dinner, 

something swimming under a square of glass. 

A tree rooted to the ground 

as the fire draws near. 

A grass blade trampled by a stampede 

of incomprehensible events. 

A shady type whose darkness 

dazzled some.

What if I'd prompted only fear, 

Loathing, 

or pity? 

If I'd been born 

in the wrong tribe 

with all roads closed before me? 

Fate has been kind 

to me thus far. 

I might never have been given 

the memory of happy moments 

My yen for comparison 

might have been taken away. 

I might have been myself minus amazement, 

that is, 

someone completely different.


—Wislawa Szymborska
Among the Multitudes

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heart of the swallow

Beth Moon, The Lovers, Morondava, Madagascar, 2006

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They made love among the hazel shrubs

beneath the suns of dew,

entangling in their hair

a leafy residue.

Heart of the swallow

have mercy on them. 

They knelt down by the lake,

combed out the earth and leaves,

and fish swam to the water's edge

shimmering like stars.

Heart of the swallow

have mercy on them.

The reflections of trees were steaming

off the rippling waves.

O swallow let this memory

forever be engraved.

O swallow, thorn of clouds,

anchor of the air,

Icarus improved,

Assumption in formal wear,

O swallow, the calligrapher,

timeless second hand,

early ornithogothic,

a crossed eye in the sky,

O swallow, pointed silence,

mourning full of joy,

halo over lovers,

have mercy on them.

—Wislawa Szymborska

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i am and look

 

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It has come to this: I'm sitting under a tree
beside a river
on a sunny morning.
It's an insignificant event
and won't go down in history.
It's not battles and pacts,
where motives are scrutinized,
or noteworthy tyrannicides.

And yet I'm sitting by this river, that's a fact.
And since I'm here
I must have come from somewhere,
and before that
I must have turned up in many other places,
exactly like the conquerors of nations
before setting sail.

Even a passing moment has its fertile past,
its Friday before Saturday,
its May before June.
Its horizons are no less real
than those that a marshal's field glasses might scan.

This tree is a poplar that's been rooted here for years.
The river is the Raba; it didn't spring up yesterday.
The path leading through the bushes
wasn't beaten last week.
The wind had to blow the clouds here
before it could blow them away.

And though nothing much is going on nearby,
the world is no poorer in details for that.
It's just as grounded, just as definite
as when migrating races held it captive.

Conspiracies aren't the only things shrouded in silence.
Retinues of reasons don't trail coronations alone.
Anniversaries of revolutions may roll around,
but so do oval pebbles encircling the bay.

The tapestry of circumstance is intricate and dense.
Ants stitching in the grass.
The grass sewn into the ground.
The pattern of a wave being needled by a twig.

So it happens that I am and look.
Above me a white butterfly is fluttering through the air
on wings that are its alone,
and a shadow skims through my hands
that is none other than itself, no one else's but its own.

When I see such things, I'm no longer sure
that what's important
is more important than what's not.


—Wislawa Szymborska
S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh version

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I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars …

—Walt Whitman

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icon(ic

 

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Some people fleeing some other people.
In some country under the sun
and some clouds.

They leave behind some of their everything,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now sees itself reflected.

On their backs are pitchers and bundles,
the emptier, the heavier from one day to the next.

Taking place stealthily is somebody’s stopping,
and in the commotion, somebody’s bread somebody’s snatching
and a dead child somebody’s shaking.

In front of them some still not the right way,
nor the bridge that should be
over a river strangely rosy.
Around them, some gunfire, at times closer, at times farther off,
and, above, a plane circling somewhat.

Some invisibility would come in handy,
some grayish stoniness,
or even better, non-being
for a little or a long while.

Something else is yet to happen, only where and what?
Someone will head toward them, only when and who,
in how many shapes and with what intentions? 

Given a choice, maybe he will choose not to be the enemy and
leave them with some kind of life.


—Wislawa Szymborska
Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh version

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