Monday, December 28, 2015

the future unknown...


i.

The calendar all booked up, the future unknown.
The cable silently hums some folk song
but lacks a country.  Snow falls in the gray sea.  Shadows
fight out on the dock. 

ii.

Halfway through your life, death turns up
and takes your pertinent measurements.  We forget
the visit.  Life goes on.  But someone is sewing 
the suit in silence.  







Tomas Transtromer
translation:  Robert Bly 
Photo:  Peter Bowers






Thursday, December 24, 2015

lute music


Let us celebrate

The Earth will be going on a long time
Before it finally freezes;
Men will be on it; they will take names, 
Give their deeds reasons.
We will be here only 
As chemical constituents - 
A small franchise indeed.

Right now we have lives,
Corpuscles, Ambitions, Caresses,
Like everybody had once - 
Here at the year's end, at the feast
Of birth, let us bring to each other
The gifts brought once west through deserts - 
The precious metal of our mingled hair, 
The frankincense of enraptured arms and legs, 
The myrrh of desperate, invincible kisses - 

Let us celebrate the daily
Recurrent nativity of love,
The endless epiphany of our fluent selves,
While the earth rolls away under us
Into unknown snows and summers,
Into untraveled spaces of the stars.





Kenneth Rexroth
Photo:  Peter Bowers








Tuesday, December 22, 2015

now in the blessed days...



Now in the blessed days of more and less
when the news about time is that each day

there is less of it I know none of that 
as I walk out through the early garden

only the day and I are here with no
before or after and the dew looks up

without a number or a present age.  





W.S. Merwin 
Photo:  Peter Bowers







Monday, December 21, 2015

the ancient womb




The world rests in the night.

Trees, mountains, fields, and faces
 are released from the prison of shape 
and the burden of exposure.

Each thing creeps back into its own nature 
within  the shelter of the dark.

Darkness is the ancient womb.

 Nighttime is womb-time.  Our souls come out to play.

The darkness absolves everything; 
the struggle for identity and impression falls away.

We rest in the night.





John O'Donohue
Anam Cara
Photo:  Peter Bowers













Sunday, December 20, 2015

at home


I will be standing in the woods
where the old trees
move only with the wind
and then with gravity.
In the stillness of the trees
I am at home. Don't come with me.
You stay home too.




Wendell Berry
Photo:  Peter Bowers









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Monday, December 7, 2015

song of not-being and being


The world is no more than the Beloved's single face;
In the desire of the One to know its own beauty, we exist.

Each place, each moment, sings its particular song of not-being and being.
Without reason, the clear glass equally mirrors wisdom and madness.

Those who claim knowledge are wrong; prayer just leads to trance;
Appearance and faith are mere lees in the Unknowing Wine.

Wherever the Footprint is found,
the handful of dust holds the oneness of worlds.  

This earth, burnished by hearing the Name, is so certain of Love
That the sky bends unceasingly down, to greet its own light.





Ghalib
Translated by Jane Hirshfield
Photo:  Peter Bowers









Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Always Touching


Always,
Enjoying,
The Perfume of the Beloved.

Even with eyes open,
Here,
In the world of form.

Even with Attention moving,
Here and there,
In “mundane” activity.

The Extraordinary… Ordinary.
The Ordinary… Extraordinary.

Always, ever,
Intoxicated,
By the Ecstasy that She is.

When Attention rests,
She is there,
Pulling at my Heart.

Always whispering,
Always touching,
Turning my face to Hers.

She exists in me,
As me,
And I in Her…

And… neither.
For “we” do not exist
At all.

There is only…
This!






Chuck Surface
Photo:  Peter Bowers