silence

"I will crush my fantasy
Bring me olive oil crushed for his majesty
to shine a warmth into eternity
This is an eternal decree...

Bring my broken heart to an invisible king
with a hope one day you might answer me
So I pray, don't you abandon me.

Your silence kills me
I wouldn't have it any other way

Is it wrong to think you might speak to me?
You might speak, would it be words and what would you say?

It's so heavy, a heavy price to pay

Your silence."

Silence - Matisyahu

by Billy Collins

Litany

"You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--
   the wine."

- Billy Collins, from Nine Horses

letting go

"When I let go of what I am,
I become what I might be.
When I let go of what I have,
I receive what I need."
-Lao Tzu

I don't know what I have been needing lately.  Maybe a warm beach breeze.  A week alone in the woods.  Some music that brings back my sense of wonder and connection to the divine.  A strong and simple sense that I am loved, and I am good.  I have the feeling that I have lost my sense of who I am.  Deep spiritual doubts.  Doubts about the love of others.  Doubts about my own self worth, that seem to go back forever, and are growing in strength.  I clench tightly down on what has worked my whole life.  Tightly clench everything.  Terrified of losing everything.  Then, my fears, realized - in a way, I have lost everything: any sense of who I am, a system of beliefs that comforted me, the marriage that I thought I had - the two of us, now pieces of a broken thing, trying to excavate the past and build something new again.  What has worked my whole life, has not worked my whole life.  I want to let go.  To pry my white knuckles from the thing.  Somehow, it takes more strength to let go then it does to hold on so firmly.  So now, this is my prayer, a burning smoke-stream from my lungs.  May I let go of what I am, and become what I might be.  May I let go of what I have, and receive what I need.

hafiz

With That Moon Language

"Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them,
    'Love me.'
Of course you do not do this out loud;
    Otherwise,
Someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this,
This great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one
Who lives with a full moon in each eye
That is always saying
With that sweet moon
    Language
What every other eye in this world
    Is dying to
    Hear."

-Hafiz

Vonnegut brilliance

"Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly,
Man got to sit and wonder why, why, why?

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand."

- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

inception

The first thing I noticed was that my jaws were clenched.  "No words for now" - a ubiquitous voice from everywhere around me.  I closed my eyes. 

And beneath the words I couldn't speak, beneath it all, I closed them again.  Entered a dream withith a dream.  Hallways leading to hallways. 

Breath became easy.  The fire burning between my ribs was cooled.

I wasn't there long - maybe longer than I know.  There were no clocks in these hallways.  No sense of direction either.  My internal compass was wrecked.

I never found anything. Never did anything. Never saw anyone.

When I came back, my jaws were still shut.  I had nothing to say, anyway.  Retrograde amnesia - unable to connect to my old thoughts and bother my poor worn-out tongue with them. 

Something was different.  Something was born in that wasteland.

So alive and speechless.

by Billy Collins

Night House

"Every day the body works in the fields of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass -
the grass of civics, the grass of money -
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.

And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,

resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.

Which is why the body - that house of voices -
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,

to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor."

- Billy Collins, from Picnic, Lightning