Silence

 Hiroshige

Why are you afraid of silence

silence is the root of everything

If you spiral into its void

a hundred voices will thunder messages

you long to hear

Rumi

Inside My Heart

 San Sebastian ~ Raphael

I said what about my eyes?

"Keep them on the road."

I said what about my passion?

"Keep it burning."

I said what about my heart?

"Tell me what you hold inside it?"

I said pain and sorrow.

He said:

"stay with it."

Rumi

Heaven

There is the heaven we enter

through institutional grace

and there are the yellow finches bathing and singing

in the lowly puddle

~



Mary Oliver wrote the above lines
and inspired me...



~

There is the blessing we receive

from ordained clerics

and there is the sunlight sifting through the trees

onto the green forest

There are the holy books from which we learn

the theology of man

and there are the Scribbly Gums

and the tracks of seagulls

There is the communion of people

and of sacraments

and there is walking in awe

in the green blue cathedral of Nature

Later
I related to a friend
how I had been inspired
to write these lines
and she told me about
Longfellow's poem:

My Cathedral

Like two cathedral towers these stately pines

uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones

The arch beneath them is not built with stones

Not art but nature traced these lovely lines,

And carved this graceful arabesque of vines:

No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,

No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones

No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.

Enter! the pavement, carpeted with leaves,

Gives back a softened echo to thy soft tread!

Listen! the choir is singing;all the birds,

In Leafy galleries beneath the eaves,

Are Singing! listen, ere the sound be fled,

And learn there may be worship without words ..

Oh Holy
Heavenly
Happy days...

The Song Remains

*

The Song Remains...

Perching on a blooming branch of rose
The bird sang a melodious song

Spreading the cry of joy
Across the void of silence

The rose vanished,
Without leaving a trace
Of its colour,
Of its smell;






But when the bird vanished,
Its song remained.

The Song Remains
by Mahmud Kianush
1934-
Iranian Poet






*

An Old Fisherman

*

An Old Fisherman

An old fisherman spent the night here

under the western cliff

He dipped up water from the pure Hsiang

and made a bamboo fire

And then, at sunrise, he went his way

through the cloven mist

With only the creak of his paddle left,

in the greenness of mountain and river

... I turn and see the waves moving as from heaven,

And clouds above the cliff coming idly, one by one

An Old Fisherman

by Liu Zongyuan,

Poet of the Tang Dynasty

Top Painting by Wu Zhen
1280-1354
Painter of the Yuan Dynasty

Bottom Painting by Wang Su
1794-1877
Happy Fisherman

*

Hark

*

As the years go by, give me but peace

freedom from ten thousand matters

I ask myself and always answer

What can be better than coming home?

A wind from the pine trees blows my sash

and my lute is bright with the mountain moon

You ask me about good and evil fortune

Hark, on the lake, there's a fisherman singing.

Poem: Wang Wei  698-759



Illustrations: Wassily Kandinsky

*

Coastal Cinquain

Coastal Cinquain

High seas
heave rolling sets
of hollow waves to shore
eager young ones sprint through the tracks
to surf

And me
I stand and watch
under the pandanus
above me a cicada thrums...
Heaven

Cinquain:

five lines

with syllables:

2

4

6

8

2

thanks Dan...


*

In Time

*

In Time...

Paul Barwick




Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk

Alexander Mann




Only a thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch grass
Yet this will go onward the same
Though dynasties pass

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by
Wars annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die







~



In Time of the Breaking of Nations
Thomas Hardy









*

Alexander Beetle

*

Alexander Beetle

I found a little beetle, so that beetle was his name,
And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same.
I put him in a matchbox, and I kept him all the day...
And Nanny let my beetle out
Yes, Nanny let my beetle out
She went and let my beetle out-
And beetle ran away.

 

She said she didn't mean it, and I never said she did,

She said she wanted matches, and she just took off the lid

She said that she was sorry, but it's difficult to catch

An excited sort of beetle you've mistaken for a match.

 

She said that she was sorry, and I really mustn't mind

As there's lots and lots of beetles which she's certain we could find

If we looked about the garden for the holes where beetles hid-

And we'd get another matchbox, and write BEETLE on the lid.

  

We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,

And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,

And I saw a kind of something, and I gave a sort of shout:

"A beetle-house and Alexander Beetle coming out!"

  

It was Alexander Beetle I'm as certain as can be

And he had a sort of look as if he thought it might be ME,

And he had a kind of look as if he thought he ought to say:

"I'm very, very sorry that I tried to run away."

And Nanny's very sorry too, for you know what she did,

And she's writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the lid,

So Nan and me are friends, because it's difficult to catch

An excited Alexander you've mistaken for a match.

A A Milne

*

A New Day

*

A New Day

At the rocky edge

I turn to the morning sun

Raise my arms up high

And exhale my yesterdays

Praying for a fresh new day

 

The new day begins

I am a knotted bundle -

Memories, habits.

But this day is untainted

And I am born again - Blessed

Thank you to Joel Goldsmith,

spiritual writer and mentor

from way back,

who, in his many books,

 reminded me
over and over again

that each day

brings another fresh 

new opportunity

to
become...

and thanks also to Dan 

for introducing me

to the Tanka

poetry form

*

Post Script

Dan has suggested that I tell you
about the poetic form of Tanka -
The Tanka is a little like
a stretched out Haiku



We begin with the Haiku format
which has a total of 17 syllables

in three lines:
with a five
seven
five
syllable pattern


and then we tack two further lines
on the end
each of which has 7 syllables.


And there you have it
A Tanka


A lovely and simple form of writing poetry
where brevity is of the essence
and being succinct
captures the spirit
of the writer's intention
in a nutshell

*

Behold

*

I existed

from eternity

and

behold

I am here

and I shall

exist till the

end of time

for my being

has no end

Kahlil Gibran

Single Unison

*

I clean my teeth in water
drawn from a cold well
And while I brush my clothes
I purify my mind

Then, slowly turning pages
in the Tree-Leaf Book,
I recite, along the path
to the eastern shelter

...The world has forgotten
the true fountain of this teaching
And people enslave themselves
to miracles and fables

Under the given words
I want the essential meaning
I look for the simplest way
to sow and reap my nature

Here in the quiet
of the priest's temple courtyard
Mosses add their climbing colour
to the thick bamboo

And now comes the sun
out of mist and fog
And pines that seem
to be new-bathed;

And everything is gone from me
speech goes, and reading
Leaving the single unison

Reading Buddhist Classics with Zhao at his Temple in the Early Morning

by Liu Zongyuan  773-819

Tang Dynasty writer

and master of free and simple prose

of the early Chinese philosophers

All artworks except the final image

are by Chen Jun

*

Harvest of Thorns or Flowers

*

A Harvest of Thorns or Flowers...



Frederick Lord Leighton




When I was in my teens
I began a collection of poetry
quotes
proverbs
and words -
the beginnings
of a life long fascination with
and enjoyment of
words and imagery

Breugel




This poem
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
was one of the first
I copied into my journal

Breugel




We must not hope to be mowers






Monet



and gather the ripe gold ears

Demeter Goddess of Grains



Unless we first have been sowers
and watered the furrows with tears

Edward John Poynter - Horae Serenae



It is not just as we take it
This mystical world of ours

Monet's Garden



Life's field will yield as we make it
A harvest of thorns or flowers

Frederick Lord Leighton

*