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"Poetry creates a chapel for everyday experience."
-Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate. |
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Agua Erotica
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Water Night If you open your eyes, night opens doors of musk, the secret kingdom of the water opens flowing from the centerr of the night. And if you close your eyes, a river fills you from within, flows forward, darkens you: night brings its wetness to beaches in your soul. -Octavio Paz, excerpted from the longer poem. |
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However innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to save them. However inexhaustible the defilements are, I vow to extinguish them. However immeasurable the dharmas are, I vow to master them. However incomparable enlightenment is, I vow to attain it. -Bodhisattva vows
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Song to the Mother Hail, O greenest branch, you who came forth in the windy blast of the questioning of saints. When the time came that you blossomed in your branches-- hail, hail, was the word to you! for th warmth of the sun distilled in you a fragrance like balsam. For in you blossomed the beautiful flower that gave fragrance to all the spices which had been dry. And they appeared in full verdure. Hence the heavens dropped dew upon the grass and the whole earth was made glad, because her womb brought forth wheat, and because the birds of heaven had nests in it. Then a meal was prepared for humanity, and great joy for the banqueters. -from a lyric by Hildegard Von Bingen |
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The Face in the Toyota |
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-Robert Bly |
| I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillians of infidels, And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking shortcake. |
| -WaltWhitman, Leaves of Grass |
| The Grasses The same wind that uproots trees makes the grasses shine. The lordly wind loves the weakness and the lowness of grasses. Never brag of being strong. The axe doesn't worry how thick the braches are. It cuts them to pieces. But not the leaves. It leaves the leaves alone. A flame doesn't consider the size of the woodpile. A butcher doesn't run from a flock of sheep. What is the form in the presence of reality? Very feeble. Reality keeps the sky turned over like a cup above us, revolving. Who turns the sky wheel? The universal intelligence. And the motion of the body comes from the spirit like a waterwheel that's held in a stream. The inhaling-exhaling is from spirit, now angry, now peaceful. Wind destroys and wind protects. There is no reality but God, says the completely surrendered sheikh, who is an ocean for all beings. The levels of creation are straws in that ocean. The movement of the straws comes from an agitation in the water. When the ocean wants the straws calm, it sends them close to shore. When it wants them back in the deep surge, it does with them as the wind does with the grasses. This never ends. -Rumi, from The Essential Rumi |
| One River One river moans underground, Looking for her child. She is dark red The color of fires Buried in the coal floor. She is all the blood Drained into the soil. One river melts The meat-flavored clay Out of the universe. She is melting skirts Into the ground And the daylight from bodies. She tangles hair with hair And is the daughter of the green And blue oceans. She is their union That never stops. Her daughter is the night She melts between us. She is always opening musky coasts, Like a river of musky coasts. One river is on top Of another river. The rivers are looking for themselves Looking for other rivers. One river is a translation Of one less river, And so on. One river becomes someone Becoming another river. Rivers are open mirrors. One river is a tunnel of mirrors Where the one man is the only light, And light is waves of men. One river is a river of mouths, River mouths, And so on. One river explodes in the sun Coiled in the seed. It is only the passing of water, But lightning is schools of fish Inside each molecule. It is only water stopping and going, But the flesh of the woman Burns the room, the passing Of water between thought and flesh, The passing of the river through seed, River of water seeds, And so on. One river meanders between us. Instead of fish it carries bees Through the maze of petals. Instead of petals each blossom Is nothing but smell. Instead of bees the river meanders Like the smooth flesh We give each other. And the flesh becomes light Inside the river. The water swells as we grow close And empties into silence. One river washes through The things we leave To themselves, thoughtless, Except for one river Pouring through pieces, Pouring through chlorophyll Like the scent of an empty field, A future wind, a knowledge Of where to go to survive, One river rising out of all Things, flowing, beyond water. One river is a starfish Deep in the hand, Sensitive to forms of the water. It is the magnet with five poles We lift into the open space Which is closest to flesh, Which responds with the heat Submerged in the heat. But one river also comes Like a tool or cord, a ring, Magnetized with our ancestors. The ancients are still currents, Through which electricity Still is passing. When we move we are more Than we know. We are always Abandoning ourselves, No matter what! --Currents In the open water, One river deep in the hands Reaching up from the river bottom, Swaying like the magnetized Blood, the stalks of each nerve, Whose spores are full of light! |
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-James Grabill (excerpted from the larger poem) |
| Footnote to Howl The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel! Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeballs holy the abyss! Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! Magnaminity! Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul! |
| -Allen Ginsburg, excerpted from Howl. |
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Carriers of the Dream Wheel This is the Wheel of Dreams. Which is carried on their voices, By means of which their voices turn And center upon being. It encircles the First World, This powerful wheel. They shape their songs upon the wheel And spin the names of earth and sky, The aboriginal names. They are old men, or men Who are old in their voices, And they carry the wheel among the camps Saying: Come, come, Let us tell the old stories, Let us sing the sacred songs. -N. Scott Momaday, A Kiowa Indian, From Carriers of the Dream Wheel-Native American Poetry |
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