…Into the dialectic

In the center of the earth I will push aside
the emeralds so that I can see you—
you like an amanuensis, with a pen
of water, copying the green sprigs of plants.
What a world! What deep parsley!
What a ship sailing through the sweetness!
And you, maybe—and me, maybe—a topaz.
There’ll be no more dissensions in the bells…

Pablo Neruda

The soul, like the moon,
is new. and always new again.

And I have seen the ocean
continuously creating.

Since I scoured my mind
and my body, I too, LaIla,
am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing,
Live in the soul.

When that was so,
I began to go naked,
and dance.

Lal Ded (14th C.?)
Bhakti (devotional) poet and ecstatic devotee of Shiva & the path of Oneness.

I live my life in growing orbits
which move out over the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.

from A Book for the Hours of Prayer – Rilke

I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.

The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.

He said, “You’re not mad enough.
You don’t belong in this house.”

I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, “Still not wild enough
to stay with us!”

I broke through another layer
into joyfullness.

He said, “It is not enough.”
I died.

He said, “You’re a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting.”

I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, “Now you’re the candle
for this assembly.”

But I’m no candle. Look!
I’m scattered smoke.

He said, “You are the sheikh, the guide.”
But I’m not a teacher. I have no power.

He said, “You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings.”

But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.

Then new events said to me,
“Don’t move. A sublime generosity is
coming toward you.”

And old love said, “Stay with me.”

I said, “I will.”

You are the fountain of the sun’s light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.

The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you.

Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.

This comes of smiling back
at your smile.

The chess master says nothing.
other than moving the silent chess piece.

That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness. Read More

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all the other stars in the loneliness.

We’re all falling. This hand is falling.
And look at the other one…. It’s in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitley calm, hold up all this falling.

from selected poems of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Robert Bly.

Holding its sky tightly in its arms, the cloud,
wrapped in its cold, damp sheepskin.
The garden of leaflessness, is alone,
day and night, with its pure, forlorn silence.
Its instrument the rain, its anthem the wind.
Its clothe is the cloak of nakedness.
And should it need a garment other than this,
the wind has woven many a flame of gold warp and weft.
Let it grow, or not, whatever wherever it wants,
or does not, there is no gardener or a passer by.
The garden of the downhearted,
does not await the arrival of any Spring.
If no warm beam of light emanates from its eyes,
and if no leaf of a smile grows on its face,
who says that the garden of leaflessness is not beautiful?
It foretells of conifers touching the sky,
now asleep in the coffin beneath the earth.
The garden of leaflessness, its laughter is tear-tinged blood.
Eternal, aloft his wild-mane yellow horse,
swaggers therein the king of the seasons, the Autumn.

Mehdi Akhavan-e Salis (M. Omid)
Tehran- Khordad 1335, May 1956

And love is a yearning of the One for the One,
And beauty is a sweet difference of the Same
And oneness is the soul of multitude.

http://www.savitribysriaurobindo.com/completeText.htm

Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”
T.S. Eliot

Being set on the idea
Of getting to Atlantis,
You have discovered of course
Only the Ship of fools is
Making the voyage this year Read More