Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Silence
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Kangeiko Poetry, Friday 1/15/2010
Prescription for the Disillusioned
Come new to this day.
Remove the rigid overcoat of experience,
the notion of knowing,
the beliefs that cloud your vision.
Leave behind the stories of your life.
Spit out the sour taste of unmet expectations.
Let the old,
almost forgotten scent of what-if
drift back into the swamp
of your useless fears.
Arrive curious,
without the armor of certainty,
without the planned results for the life
you’ve imagined.
Live the life that chooses you,
new with every breath,
new with every blink of
your astonished eyes.
— Rebecca del Rio
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do.
And began.
Though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice.
Though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
“Mend my life,” each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do.
Though the wind pried
with its fingers
at the very foundations.
Though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough.
And a wild night.
And a road full of fallen branches
and stones.
But little by little
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds.
And there was a new voice
that you slowly recognized as you own
which kept you company
as you strolled deeper and deeper into the world.
Determined to do the only thing you could do.
Determined to save the only life you could save.
— Mary Oliver
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Kangeiko Poetry, Thursday 1/14/2010
The mystery cannot be answered
By repeating the question
Nor can it be bought
By going to amazing places.
Not until the eye and desires
Have been stilled for many years,
Not until then,
Can I cross over from confusion.
— Rumi
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
— Mary Oliver
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Kangeiko Poetry, Wednesday 1/13/2010
Self-Portrait
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to live in this world with its harsh need to change you.
If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand.
I want to know if you know how to melt into that fierce heat of living falling toward
the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.
— David Whyte
Kangeiko Poetry, Monday 1/11/2010
Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road -
Only wakes upon the sea.
— Antonio Machado
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.
And another English translation:
Wayfarer, the only way is your footsteps,
there is no other.
Wayfarer, there is no way,
you make the way as you go.
As you go you make the way
and stopping to look behind,
you see the path that your feet will never travel again.
Wayfarer, there is no way -
only foam trails in the sea.