Lightly Child, Lightly.

Your light…
Your silence…
In the silence, without listening,
I heard it,
and without words,
without language or breath,

I answered.

~ C.K. Williams, from “With Ignorance” in Collected Poems.


Notes:

  • Inspired by Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa): “The wise man believes profoundly in silence, the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence – not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool – his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character.
  • Photo by Evgeniy Shaman with “Beyond the Infinite” via shrbrrpxr.
  • Poem: via violentwavesofemotion
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

TGIF: Things to Do Today

Things to do today:

1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.

Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind of a Funny Story.


Photo: Huffinton Post.  Quote: The Vale of Soul Making

Saturday Morning

eric-rose-portrait-freckles

Fragile as ash
a memory stirs
and the past comes back. […]

a single breath
can make it
crackle and burn.

~ Gary Catalano, “Breath,” Slow Tennis: Poems 1980-83

 


Notes: Poem – Memory’s Landscape. Catalano was an Australian poet and art critic. Photo: Eric Rose.

Lightly child, lightly.

lightly-wind-breeze-orange-sky

True singing is a different breath,
about nothing.
A gust inside the god.
A wind.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Sonnet I.III,” in Duino Elegies; The Sonnets To Orpheus in The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

 


Notes:

  • Oil Painting by Laura E. Pritchett . Poem: Thank you The Vale of Soul Making
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Sunday Morning

wind-air-breathe-jpg

To
take into the air
my quiet breath…

~ John Keats, from Ode to a Nightingale 

 


Photo: Margaret Durow via sotick