From time to time a poem

"Cold cliffs, more beautiful the deeper you enter--
Yet no one travels this road.
White clouds idle about tall crags;
On the green peak a single monkey wails.
What other companions do I need?
I grow old doing as I please.
Though face and form alter with the years,
I hold fast to the pearl of the mind."

Hanshan
Translated by Burton Watson

This reminded me of tzb's service last year about death: http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/sermons/2139-death

"A telling analogy for life and death:
Compare the two of them to water and ice.
Water draws together to become ice,
And ice disperses again to become water.
Whatever has died is sure to be born again;
Whatever is born comes round again to dying.
As ice and water do one another no harm,
So life and death, the two of them, are fine."

Hanshan
Translated by Peter Harris

The conditions of a solitary bird are five:
the first; that it flies to the highest point;
the second: that it does not suffer for company; even of its own kind;
the third: that it aims its beak to the skies;
the fourth: that it has no definite color;
the fith: that it sings very softly


San Juan de la Cruz
"Dichos de Luz y Amor
Sayings of Light and Love"

Love, I have wounds,
Only you can mend,
You can mend.
I guess that's love,
I can't pretend,
I Can't pretend.

Feel, my skin is rough,
But it can be cleansed,
It Can be cleansed.
And my arms are tough,
But they can be bent,
Can be bent.

And I wanna fight,
But I can't contend.
I guess that's love,
I can't pretend,
I Can't pretend.

Oh feel our bodies grow,
And our souls they blend.
Yeah love I hope you know,
How much my heart depends.

But I guess that's love I can't pretend,
I guess that's love I can't pretend.

Oh feel our bodies grow,
and our souls they blend.
Yeah love I hope you know,
how much my heart depends.

I guess that's love I can't pretend,
I guess that's love I can't pretend.

- Tom Odell (Can't Pretend)

Riverbend

From damask clouds it came
Soon flooding, single filed
Breaking through the hollow night

Serene, the lamplight moon
A citrine gaze now scattered
Across onyx turbulence

Between the creeping trees
Delirious in silence
A hush-blown, fervent whisper

Submerging landscapes of
Dark plants and fish and snails
Dead stones and toothless jawbones

Until the twist! the flip!
Coiling backwards, wrenched aside
Collapse – a cataclysm –

Then water roaring on
In lost unseen contortions,
And endless, ceaseless motion
to the sea.

Broken hearts and bottles,
lay thrown about the floor,
because there's no rule of thumb,
in love and life and war,

Sometimes at night,
the thoughts of what have been,
come flooding through the window,
in the veil of a dream,

better loved and lost,
than never loved at all,
yet i sit and wait,
for my lost love to call.

All around me darkness gathers,
Fading is the sun that shone,
We must speak of other matters,
You can be me when I'm gone.

Flowers gathered in the morning,
Afternoon they blossom on,
Still are withered in the evening,
You can be me when I'm gone.

Neil Gaiman (From Sandman Volume 9)

Whisper Lake

A narrow stroke of land
Frames Whisper Lake
Flat between low clouds
Dredging old white shadows
Through the waiting pool

And fog which narrows, thins
Conceals, distorts
In silence, drifting
Across silver barked birch
And grey, muddy grass

Their ghosts are drowning still
In the vacance
Whisper Lake is mute
And even wind won’t stir
Breath enough to raise

the fabled whisper.

It started waAay back in twenty twelve
When I got butt naked and took the delve
Off into the Mysteries
Now ain't nothing unknown
That ain't known to me


:evil:

the above poem is sarcastic
rule number one
the illusion is deceptive
and as all life forms are in the illusion
and humans have mouths
you get the point

First our pleasures die,
and then our hopes,
and then our fears,
and when these are dead,
the debt is due,
dust claims dust,
and we die too.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Tell me was that you my love
that whisper in the trees?
for i was lonesome when i heard it
and it set my mind at ease

This crushing weight of patience
I so miss the way you smell
Todays blood buys the future
Tomorrows Love would never sell

So when your mother asks my proof of worth
And your father simply looks away
Do not forget our love my blood
Hold fast tomorrows hope today

Strictly speaking the Qur'an's passages are not poetry, however they are quite poetic.

By the morning brightness
And the night when it covers with darkness,
Your Lord has not taken leave of you, nor has He detested [you].
And the Hereafter is better for you than the first [life].
And your Lord is going to give you, and you will be satisfied.
Did He not find you an orphan and give [you] refuge?
And He found you lost and guided [you],
And He found you poor and made [you] self-sufficient.
So as for the orphan, do not oppress [him].
And as for the petitioner, do not repel [him].
But as for the favor of your Lord, report [it].

"The Morning Hours" Sura 93 Suhih International English transliteration

strength's mutiny
isn't about weakness not being tolerated
but hope confiscated
when trust has been undone
how far can the wild man run
legend held that they could
run down any creature
on turtle island
and even knew how many days it would take
with more accuracy than meteorologists
they probably were better
at forecasting the weather too

every year during spring I open my windows
because a.playful world makes me.want to.knock on peoples doors and run away

every year during summer I open my windows so the breeze can ease my skin and make the heat that stirs within me run away

every year during autumn I open my windows to catch each brilliant colors last adieu before its time for it to run way

every year during winter I open my windows and let the cold remind my bones that i too will some day have to run away

I keep my talons sharp
and my beak is not a decoration
to fly to the highest point
I must have the strongest wings that I can grow

I am offended at the angels harp
death is not my destination
I have cut my arm off at the joint
when the boulder did not let me go

I know the taste of dirt
I remember how to be afraid
my belly does not forget the earth
nor my back,
the helplessnes bestowed by tyrants heel

now my laghter mocks my hurt
my life is worth the deaths ive paid
I soar to home and heart and hearth
I died to give myself this right, so none but me
authority
of this right to repeal

star of the county down
Cathal McGarvey

banbridge town in the county down
one morning last july
from a boreen green came a sweet colleen a d she smiled as she passed me by
she looked so sweet from her bare two feet
to the sheen of her nut-brown hair
such a coaxing elf, sure I shook myself
for to see I was really there

from bantry bay into derry quay
from galway to dublin town
no maid ive seen like the fair colleen
that I met in the county down

as she onward sped sure I scratched my head
and I looked with a feelin rare
and I says
says I
to a passer by
"whos the maid with the nut-brown hair?"

he smiled at me
and he says
says he
"Thats the gem of irelands crown
Young Rosie McCan from the banks of the ban
shes the star of the county down"

from bantry bay into derry quay
from galway to.dublin town
no maid ive seen like the fair colleen
that I met at the county down

the harvest fair shell surely be there
and I'll dress in my Sunday clothes
with my shoes done bright and my hat cocked right
for a smile from my nut-brown rose
no pipe I'll smoke no horse I'll yoke
till my plow turns rust colored brown
till my smiling bride by my own fireside
sits the star of the county down!

And everyone was resting because they thought it was the end
And even if it wasn't they decide they'd pretend
And somewhere in the distance I could hear him whispering
"You can fight all you want they will win in the end"

Sometimes in the evening when I'm lying in my bed
I am taken to the forest to the isolated shed
And I wake with his words resonating in my head
And I can't stop thinking about the gist of what he said

He said:
So watch your mouth
Or you're going to make a grave mistake
Hold your tongue
Or you're going to catch a bullet in the head
So watch your mouth
Or you're going to make a grave mistake
Don't die for anything less than the best of,
Everyone settles for the rest not the best of,
I will die for no less than the best of life

-They Provide The Paint For The Picture-Perfect Masterpiece That You Will Paint On The Insides Of Your Eyelids, by Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution (covered by Streetlight Manifesto, same singer/songwriter Thomas Kalnoky)