When I was in India in August, I became friends with a wonderful woman. Kristin Brudevold is a graduate of Naropa Institute and a walking resource of all things Buddhist. Our conversations as we trekked through the mountains of Ladakh were very rich and provocative. One of Kristin’s projects before leaving Naropa was to research […]
The Bully Heart
One is One Heart, you bully, you punk, I’m wrecked, I’m shocked stiff. You? you still try to rule the world–though I’ve got you: identified, starving, locked in a cage you will not leave alive, no matter how you hate it, pound its walls, & thrill its corridors with messages. Brute. Spy. I trusted you. […]
Resuming the Boundaries
After Love Afterwards, the compromise. Bodies resume their boundaries. These legs, for instance, mine. Your arms take you back in. Spoons of our fingers, lips admit their ownership. The bedding yawns, a door blows aimlessly ajar and overhead, a plane singsongs coming down. Nothing is changed, except there was a moment when the wolf, the […]
Quiet Revelations
Former US poet laureate Louise Gluck, whose poetry I have posted here many times, just won the coveted Wallace Stevens award. Well deserved. Also awarded: An academy fellowship granted to Brigit Pegeen Kelly, a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. After reading some of her work online, I am adding Kelly to my list. […]
Striking Deep
I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing . . . Silence . . . Waves . . . -Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, and am now standing quietly, in my new life? –Juan Ramon Jimenez (translated by Robert Bly) […]
Reality, Redux
Querulous Squirrel did a riff on the Rumi one liner that I posted here yesterday. QS is one of my favorite bloggers, and her explorations and insights are rich, expansive and inspiring. Here’s some worthy reading (and so much more if you go directly to her site): Reality exists. There is no doubt about it. […]
Rumi, On Reality
The nature of reality is this: It is hidden, and it is hidden, and it is hidden. –Rumi
The Zimmer Flies
The Great Bird of Love I want to become a great night bird Called the Zimmer, grow intricate gears And tendons, brace my wings on updrafts, Roll them down with a motion That lifts me slowly into the stars To fly above the troubles of the land. When I soar the moon will shine past […]
Palm Leaf Painting
(detail) One of the most beguiling things I found while in India was palm leaf “books,” made from thin strips of dried palm leaves and threaded together to fold up accordion-style. Copies of this ancient tradition have been made into tourist souvenirs, but the early versions that we saw in museum collections are stunning. We […]
To Live in this World
In Blackwater Woods Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every […]