…desire,
a huge fish I drag with me
through the wilderness:
I love its glint among the dust and stones.
~ Gregory Orr, Leaving The Asylum in The Red House. (Harper & Row, 1980.)
Notes:
What in your life is calling you,
When all the noise is silenced,
The meetings adjourned…
The lists laid aside,
And the Wild Iris blooms
By itself
In the dark forest…
What still pulls on your soul?
~ Rumi ((1207 – 1273)
Credits: Image Source: Mennyfox55. Poem: Your Eyes Blaze Out
I glance right at the digital read out.
Monday: 4:00 am. Tuesday: 2 am. Now: 1:38 am.
Impressive trajectory. By Friday, you’ll be a 7-Eleven, open 7 x 24.
I run the math. 3.5 hours.
It just can’t be.
I turn away from the clock, a source of irritation, and close my eyes.
Aha! Bad, but not So bad. It’s Mountain Daylight Time without the Daylight. It’s 3:38 am EST. Jet lag has to be the culprit.
It’s silent but for the low hum of the hotel air-conditioning.
The bed, is alien. The pillows are off.
There’s no Zeke at my feet. His Leaning. First at the legs, and as the night progresses, into my torso. After seven years, when I’m away, it has become a leaning akin to a missing limb on an amputee.
Don’t open your eyes. Don’t reach for the laptop. Don’t do it.
Only a beige slat of sun above the horizon,
like a shade pulled not quite down.
Otherwise, clouds.
Sea rippled here and there.
Birds reluctant to fly.
The mind wants a shaft of sun
to stir the grey porridge of clouds,
an osprey to stitch sea to sky with its barred wings,
some dramatic music: a symphony,
perhaps a Chinese gong.
But the mind always wants more than it has –
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed with the moon;
one more hour to get the words right;
one more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket in dried grasses –
as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren’t enough,
as if joy weren’t strewn all around.
– Holly Hughes, Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems
Notes:
What are you waiting for?
The next promotion? The next holiday? The next satsang? The next Facebook update?
The next spiritual high? The next victory? The next relationship?
The next level of enlightenment? The next chance to prove how much you know?
The next life? The next… moment?
What if this ‘next’ never comes?
And even if it does, what if it won’t end your seeking?
What if life – and its fulfillment – is always Now?
Then, what’s next?
— Jeff Foster
Notes:
how you can never reach it,
no matter how hard you try,
walking as fast as you can,
but getting nowhere,
arms and legs pumping,
sweat drizzling in rivulets;
each year, a little slower,
more creaks and aches, less breath.
Ah, but these soft nights,
air like a warm bath,
the dusky wings of bats careening crazily overhead,
and you’d think the road goes on forever.
Apollinaire wrote, “What isn’t given to love is so much wasted,”
and I wonder what I haven’t given yet.
A thin comma moon rises orange,
a skinny slice of melon,
so delicious I could drown in its sweetness.
Or eat the whole thing, down to the rind.
Always, this hunger for more.
— Barbara Crooker, How the Trees on Summer Nights Turn Into A Dark River
Notes:
We want the spring to come
and the winter to pass.
We want whoever to call
or not call,
a letter,
a kiss —
we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments,
walking,
when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store,
and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair,
chapped face,
and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living …
~ Marie Howe
Sources/References:
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There is within me a thing that is aching, aching, aching always as the days pass.
—Mary MacLane
Credits: Poem – Sleepwalking.nu from Mary MacLane’s book , “I Await The Devil’s Coming”. Photograph: Bill Moore
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