Distances. Philippe Jacottet

 

Distances

 

Swifts turn in the heights of the air;

higher still turn the invisible stars.

When day withdraws to the ends of the earth

their fires shine on a dark expanse of sand.

 

We live in a world of motion and distance.

The heart flies from tree to bird,

from bird to distant star,

from star to love; and love grows

in the quiet house, turning and working,

servant of thought, a lamp held in one hand.

 

~ Philippe Jaccottet ~

 

(The Selected Poems of Philippe Jaccottet, translated by Derek Mahon)

Images - Richard Aldington

Images

by Richard Aldington

 

I 

 

Like a gondola of green scented fruits

Drifting along the dank canals of Venice,

You, O exquisite one,

Have entered into my desolate city.

 

II 

 

The blue smoke leaps

Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing.

So my love leaps forth toward you,

Vanishes and is renewed.

 

III 

 

A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky

When the sunset is faint vermilion

In the mist among the tree-boughs

Art thou to me, my beloved.

 

IV 

 

A young beech tree on the edge of the forest

Stands still in the evening,

Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air

And seems to fear the stars--

So are you still and so tremble.

 

V 

 

The red deer are high on the mountain,

They are beyond the last pine trees.

And my desires have run with them.

 

VI 

 

The flower which the wind has shaken

Is soon filled again with rain;

So does my heart fill slowly with tears,

O Foam-Driver, Wind-of-the-Vineyards,

Until you return. 

When Death Comes - Mary Oliver

When Death Comes

 

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

 

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

 

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

 

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

 

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

 

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 

as a field daisy, and as singular,

 

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth

tending as all music does, toward silence,

 

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

 

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

 

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened

or full of argument.

 

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

 

(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)

 

 

 

Sonnets to Orpheus, Part One, XXII - Rainer Maria Rilke

Sonnets to Orpheus, Part One, XXII

 

We set the pace.

But this press of time --

take it as a little thing

next to what endures.

 

All this hurrying

soon will be over.

Only when we tarry

do we touch the holy.

 

Young ones, don't waste your courage

racing so fast,

flying so high.

 

See how all things are at rest --

darkness and morning light,

blossom and book.

 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

 

(In Praise of Mortality, translated and edited by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

If It Is Not Too Dark - Hafiz

If It Is Not Too Dark

 

Go for a walk, if it is not too dark.

Get some fresh air, try to smile.

Say something kind

To a safe-looking stranger, if one happens by.

 

Always exercise your heart's knowing.

 

You might as well attempt something real

Along this path:

 

Take your spouse or lover into your arms

The way you did when you first met.

Let tenderness pour from your eyes

The way the Sun gazes warmly on the earth.

 

Play a game with some children.

Extend yourself to a friend.

Sing a few ribald songs to your pets and plants -

Why not let them get drunk and wild!

 

Let's toast

Every rung we've climbed on Evolution's ladder.

Whisper, "I love you! I love you!"

To the whole mad world.

 

Let's stop reading about God -

We will never understand Him.

 

Jump to your feet, wave your fists,

Threaten and warn the whole Universe

 

That your heart can no longer live

Without real love!

 

~ Hafiz ~

 

 

(I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky

Possibilities,

Possibilities

 

I prefer movies.

I prefer cats.

I prefer the oaks along the river.

I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.

I prefer myself liking people

to myself loving mankind.

I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.

I prefer the color green.

I prefer not to maintain

that reason is to blame for everything.

I prefer exceptions.

I prefer to leave early.

I prefer talking to doctors about something else.

I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems 

to the absurdity of not writing poems.

I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries

that can be celebrated every day.

I prefer moralists

who promise me nothing.

I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.

I prefer the earth in civvies.

I prefer conquered to conquering countries.

I prefer having some reservations.

I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.

I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.

I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.

I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.

I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.

I prefer desk drawers.

I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here

to many things I've also left unsaid.

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 ~

 

(Nothing Twice, trans. by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh)

 

Shovelling Snow With Buddha, Billy Collins

Shoveling Snow With Buddha

 

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok

you would never see him doing such a thing,

tossing the dry snow over a mountain

of his bare, round shoulder,

his hair tied in a knot,

a model of concentration.

 

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word

for what he does, or does not do.

 

Even the season is wrong for him.

In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?

Is this not implied by his serene expression,

that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

 

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,

one shovelful at a time.

We toss the light powder into the clear air.

We feel the cold mist on our faces.

And with every heave we disappear

and become lost to each other

in these sudden clouds of our own making,

these fountain-bursts of snow.

 

This is so much better than a sermon in church,

I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.

This is the true religion, the religion of snow,

and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,

I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

 

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow

as if it were the purpose of existence,

as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway

you could back the car down easily

and drive off into the vanities of the world

with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

 

All morning long we work side by side,

me with my commentary

and he inside his generous pocket of silence,

until the hour is nearly noon

and the snow is piled high all around us;

then, I hear him speak.

 

After this, he asks,

can we go inside and play cards?

 

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk

and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table

while you shuffle the deck.

and our boots stand dripping by the door.

 

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes

and leaning for a moment on his shovel

before he drives the thin blade again

deep into the glittering white snow.

 

 

 

~ Billy Collins ~

 

 

(Picnic, Lightning)

For A New Beginning - John O'Donohue

For a New Beginning

 

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,

Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming,

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

 

For a long time it has watched your desire,

Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on,

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

 

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the gray promises that sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,

Wondered would you always live like this.

 

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream,

A path of plenitude opening before you.

 

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life's desire.

 

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

 

~ John O'Donohue ~

 

(To Bless the Space Between Us)