The Poetry Of Hafiz Poems on this page are translated by both Thomas Rain Crowe, from his book,

Drunk On the Wine of the Beloved and selections from Daniel Ladinsky's translations. Hafiz, a Sufi poet, expressed in poetry love for the divine, and the intoxicating oneness of union with it. Hafiz, along with many Sufi masters, uses wine as the symbol for love. The intoxication that results from both is why it is such a fitting comparison. Hafiz spoke out about the hypocrisy and deceit that exists in society, and was more outspoken in pointing this out than many poets similar to him. List of Poems: All the Hemispheres From The Large Jug, Drink I Have Learned So Much Let Thought Become Your Beautiful Lover School of Truth Laughing At the Word Two I Know the Way You Can Get I've Said It Before and I'll Say It Again Tired of Speaking Sweetly Like The Morning Breeze We Might Have To Medicate You A Potted Plant No More Leaving All the Hemispheres Leave the familiar for a while. Let your senses and bodies stretch out Like a welcomed season Onto the meadows and shores and hills. Open up to the Roof. Make a new water-mark on your excitement And love. Like a blooming night flower, Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And giving Upon our intimate assembly. Change rooms in your mind for a day. All the hemispheres in existence Lie beside an equator In your heart. Greet Yourself In your thousand other forms As you mount the hidden tide and travel Back home. All the hemispheres in heaven Are sitting around a fire Chatting While stitching themselves together Into the Great Circle inside of You.

From: 'The Subject Tonight is Love' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky From the Large Jug, Drink From the large jug, drink the wine of Unity, So that from your heart you can wash away the futility of life's grief. But like this large jug, still keep the heart expansive. Why would you want to keep the heart captive, like an unopened bottle of wine? With your mouth full of wine, you are selfless And will never boast of your own ability again. Be like the humble stone at your feet rather than striving to be like a Sublime cloud: the more you mix colors of deceit,

the more colorless your ragged wet coat will get. Connect the heart to the wine, so that it has body, Then cut off the neck of hypocrisy and piety of this new man. Be like Hafiz: Get up and make an effort. Don't lie around like a bum. He who throws himself at the Beloved's feet is like a workhorse and will be rewarded with boundless pastures and eternal rest. From: Drunk on the Wine of the Beloved Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe I Have Learned So Much I Have Learned So much from God That I can no longer Call Myself A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself With me That I can no longer call myself A man, a woman, an angel, Or even a pure Soul. Love has Befriended Hafiz so completely It has turned to ash And freed Me Of every concept and image

my mind has ever known. From: 'The Gift' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky Let Thought Become Your Beautiful Lover Let thought become the beautiful Woman. Cultivate your mind and heart to that depth That it can give you everything A warm body can. Why just keep making love with God's child-- Form When the Friend Himself is standing Before us So open-armed? My dear, Let prayer become your beautiful Lover And become free, Become free of this whole world Like Hafiz.

From: 'The Gift' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky School of Truth O fool, do something, so you won't just stand there looking dumb. If you are not traveling and on the road, how can you call yourself a guide? In the School of Truth, one sits at the feet of the Master of Love. So listen, son, so that one day you may be an old father, too!

All this eating and sleeping has made you ignorant and fat; By denying yourself food and sleep, you may still have a chance. Know this: If God should shine His lovelight on your heart, I promise you'll shine brighter than a dozen suns. And I say: wash the tarnished copper of your life from your hands; To be Love's alchemist, you should be working with gold. Don't sit there thinking; go out and immerse yourself in God's sea. Having only one hair wet with water will not put knowledge in that head. For those who see only God, their vision Is pure, and not a doubt remains. Even if our world is turned upside down and blown over by the wind, If you are doubtless, you won't lose a thing. O Hafiz, if it is union with the Beloved that you seek, Be the dust at the Wise One's door, and speak! From: 'Drunk On the Wind of the Beloved' Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe Laughing At the Word Two Only That Illumined One Who keeps Seducing the formless into form Had the charm to win my Heart. Only a Perfect One Who is always

Laughing at the word Two Can make you know Of Love. From: 'The Gift' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky Know The Way You Can Get I know the way you can get When you have not had a drink of Love: Your face hardens, Your sweet muscles cramp. Children become concerned About a strange look that appears in your eyes Which even begins to worry your own mirror And nose. Squirrels and birds sense your sadness And call an important conference in a tall tree. They decide which secret code to chant To help your mind and soul. Even angels fear that brand of madness That arrays itself against the world And throws sharp stones and spears into The innocent And into one's self. O I know the way you can get If you have not been drinking Love: You might rip apart Every sentence your friends and teachers say,

Looking for hidden clauses. You might weigh every word on a scale Like a dead fish. You might pull out a ruler to measure From every angle in your darkness The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once Trusted. I know the way you can get If you have not had a drink from Love's Hands. That is why all the Great Ones speak of The vital need To keep remembering God, So you will come to know and see Him As being so Playful And Wanting, Just Wanting to help. That is why Hafiz says: Bring your cup near me. For all I care about Is quenching your thirst for freedom! All a Sane man can ever care about Is giving Love! From: 'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky I've Said It Before and I'll Say It Again I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's not my fault that with a broken heart, I've gone this way. In front of a mirror they have put me like a parrot, And behind the mirror the Teacher tells me what to say.

Whether I am perceived as a thorn or a rose, it's The Gardener who has fed and nourished me day to day. O friends, don't blame me for this broken heart; Inside me there is a great jewel and it's to the Jeweler's shop I go. Even though, to pious, drinking wine is a sin, Don't judge me; I use it as a bleach to wash the color of hypocrisy away. All that laughing and weeping of lovers must be coming from some other place; Here, all night I sing with my winecup and then moan for You all day. If someone were to ask Hafiz, "Why do you spend all your time sitting in The Winehouse door?," to this man I would say, "From there, standing, I can see both the Path and the Way. From: Drunk on the Wind of the Beloved Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe Tired of Speaking Sweetly Love wants to reach out and manhandle us, Break all our teacup talk of God. If you had the courage and Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights, He would just drag you around the room By your hair, Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world That bring you no joy. Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly And wants to rip to shreds All your erroneous notions of truth That make you fight within yourself, dear one, And with others, Causing the world to weep

On too many fine days. God wants to manhandle us, Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself And practice His dropkick. The Beloved sometimes wants To do us a great favor: Hold us upside down And shake all the nonsense out. But when we hear He is in such a "playful drunken mood" Most everyone I know Quickly packs their bags and hightails it Out of town. From: 'The Gift' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky Like The Morning Breeze Like the morning breeze, if you bring to the morning good deeds, The rose of our desire will open and bloom. Go forward, and make advances down this road of love; In forward motion, the pain is great. To beg at the door of the Winehouse is a wonderful alchemy. If you practice this, soon you will be converting dust into gold. O heart, if only once you experience the light of purity, Like a laughing candle, you can abandon the life you live in your head. But if you are still yearning for cheap wine and a beautiful face, Don't go out looking for an enlightened job. Hafiz, if you are listening to this good advice, The road of Love and its enrichment are right around the curve.

From: Drunk on the Wind of the Beloved Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe We Might Have To Medicate You Resist your temptation to lie By speaking of separation from God, Otherwise, We might have to medicate You. In the ocean A lot goes on beneath your eyes. Listen, They have clinics there too For the insane Who persist in saying things like: "I am independent from the Sea, God is not always around Gently Pressing against My body." From: 'The Gift' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky A Potted Plant I pull a sun from my coin purse each day. And at night I let my pet the moon Run freely into the sky meadow.

If I whistled, She would turn her head and look at me. If I then waved my arms, She would come back wagging a marvelous tail Of stars. There are always a few men like me In this world Who are house-sitting for God. We share His royal duties: I water each day a favorite potted plant Of His-This earth. Ask the Friend for love. Ask Him again. For I have learned that every heart will get What it prays for Most. From: 'The Subject Tonight Is Love' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky No More Leaving At Some point Your relationship With God Will Become like this: Next time you meet Him in the forest Or on a crowded city street

There won't be anymore "Leaving." That is, God will climb into Your pocket. You will simply just take Yourself Along! From: 'The Gift' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky Jalaluddin Rumi Jelaluddin Rumi, the 13th century mystic poet, was truly one of the most passionate and profound poets in history. Now, today his presence still remains strong, due in part to how his words seem to drip of the divine, and startle a profound rememberance that links all back to the Soul-Essence. Born in what is present day Afghanistan in 1207, he produced his master work the Masnawi which consists of over 60,000 poems before he died in 1273. The best way to fully say in words his impact, is that he has the ability to describe the Indescribable, Ineffable-- God. I have included two different translators of his work. Coleman Barks on the first two pages, Shahram Shiva on the third. List of Poems: Moving Water Not Intrigued With Evening The Breeze At Dawn... There is A Way... For Awhile We Lived With People.... This We Have Now Birdsong... Light Breeze

Only Breath One Who Does What the Friend... Not Here If You Want What Visible Reality... Late By Myself... Moving Water When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. When actions come from another section, the feeling disappears. Don't let others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures. Reach for the rope of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will. Because of willfulness people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied, fish sizzle in the skillet. The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate inflict visible punishment. Now see the invisible. If you could leave your selfishness, you would see how you've been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well. How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don't insist on going where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring. Your living pieces will form a harmony. There is a moving palace that floats in the air with balconies and clear water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained

under a single tent. From The Glance by Coleman Barks

Light Breeze As regards feeling pain, like a hand cut in battle, consider the body a robe you wear. When you meet someone you love, do you kiss their clothes? Search out who's inside. Union with God is sweeter than body comforts. We have hands and feet different from these. Sometimes in dream we see them. That is not illusion. It's seeing truly. You do have a spirit body; don't dread leaving the physical one. Sometimes someone feels this truth so strongly that he or she can live in mountain solitude totally refreshed. The worried, heroic doings of men and women seem weary and futile to dervishes enjoying the light breeze of spirit. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks Only Breath Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being. From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks Not Here There's courage involved if you want to become truth. There is a brokenopen place in a lover. Where are those qualities of bravery and sharp compassion in this group? What's the use of old and frozen thought? I want

a howling hurt. This is not a treasury where gold is stored; this is for copper. We alchemists look for talent that can heat up and change. Lukewarm won't do. Halfhearted holding back, well-enough getting by? Not here. From Soul of Rumi by Coleman Barks Two Friends A certain person came to the Friend's door and knocked. "Who's there?" "It's me." The Friend answered, "Go away. There's no place for raw meat at this table." The individual went wandering for a year. Nothing but the fire of separation can change hypocrisy and ego. The person returned completely cooked, walked up and down in front of the Friend's house, gently knocked. "Who is it?" "You." "Please come in, my self, there's no place in this house for two. The doubled end of the thread is not what goes through the eye of the needle. It's a single-pointed, fined-down, thread end, not a big ego-beast with baggage." From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. From Essential Rumi by Coleman Bark The Seed Market Can you find another market like this? Where, with your one rose you can buy hundreds of rose gardens? Where, for one seed get a whole wilderness? For one weak breath, a divine wind? You've been fearful

of being absorbed in the ground, or drawn up by the air. Now, your waterbead lets go and drops into the ocean, where it came from. It no longer has the form it had, but it's still water The essence is the same. This giving up is not a repenting. It's a deep honoring of yourself. When the ocean comes to you as a lover, marry at once, quickly, for God's sake! Don't postpone it! Existence has no better gift. No amount of searching will find this. A perfect falcon, for no reason has landed on your shoulder, and become yours. From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks The Self We Share Thirst is angry with water. Hunger bitter with bread.The cave wants nothing to do with the sun. This is dumb, the selfdefeating way we've been. A gold mine is calling us into its temple. Instead, we bend and keep picking up rocks from the ground. Every thing has a shine like gold, but we should turn to the source! The origin is what we truly are. I add a little vinegar to the honey I give. The bite of

scolding makes ecstasy more familiar. But look, fish, you're already in the ocean: just swimming there makes you friends with glory. What are these grudges about? You are Benjamin. Joseph has put a gold cup in your grain sack and accused you of being a thief. Now he draws you aside and says, "You are my brother. I am a prayer. You're the amen." We move in eternal regions, yet worry about property here. This is the prayer of each: You are the source of my life. You separate essence from mud. You honor my soul. You bring rivers from the mountain springs. You brighten my eyes. The wine you offer takes me out of myself into the self we share. Doing that is religion. From The Glance by Coleman Barks Two Kinds of Intelligence There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as from the new sciences. With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others in regard to your competence in retaining information. You stroll with this intelligence

in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more marks on your preserving tablets. There is another kind of tablet, one already completed and preserved inside you. A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness in the center of the chest. This other intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid, and it doesn't move from outside to inside through conduits of plumbing-learning. This second knowing is a fountainhead from within you, moving out. From Essential Rumi By Coleman Barks The Taste of Morning Time's knife slides from the sheath, as fish from where it swims. Being closer and closer is the desire of the body. Don't wish for union! There's a closeness beyond that. Why would God want a second God? Fall in love in such a way that it frees you from any connecting. Love is the soul's light, the taste of morning, no me, no we, no claim of being. These words are the smoke the fire gives off as it absolves its defects, as eyes in silence, tears, face. Love cannot be said. From The Glance

by Coleman Barks Shadow and Light Source Both How does a part of the world leave the world? How does wetness leave water? Dont' try to put out fire by throwing on more fire! Don't wash a wound with blood. No matter how fast you run, your shadow keeps up. Sometimes it's in front! Only full overhead sun diminishes your shadow. But that shadow has been serving you. What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle. Your boundaries are your quest. I could explain this, but it will break the glass cover on your heart, and there's no fixing that. You must have shadow and light source both. Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe. When from that tree feathers and wings sprout on you, be quieter than a dove. Don't even open your mouth for even a coo. From Soul of Rumi by Coleman Barks The Dream That Must Be Interpreted This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream. Everything cruel and unconscious done in the illusion of the present world, all that does not fade away at the death-waking. It stays, and it must be interpreted. All the mean laughing, all the quick, sexual wanting, those torn coats of Joseph, they change into powerful wolves that you must face. The retaliation that sometimes comes now, the swift, payback hit, is just a boy's game to what the other will be. You know about circumcision here. It's full castration there! And this groggy time we live, this is what it's like: A man goes to sleep in the town where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living in another town. In the dream, he doesn't remember the town he's sleeping in his bed in. He believes the reality of the dream town. The world is that kind of sleep. The dust of many crumbled cities settles over us like a forgetful doze, but we are older than those cities.

We began as a mineral. We emerged into plant life and into the animal state, and then into being human, and always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again. That's how a young person turns toward a teacher. That's how a baby leans toward the breast, without knowing the secret of its desire, yet turning instinctively. Humankind is being led along an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences, and though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are. From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks Who Says Words With My Mouth? All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off, but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. This poetry, I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all. From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks A Smile and A Gentleness There is a smile and gentleness inside. When I learned the name and address of that, I went to where you sell perfume. I begged you not to trouble me so with longing. Come out and play! Flirt more naturally. Teach me how to kiss. On the ground a spread blanket, flame that's caught and burning well, cumin seeds browning, I am inside all of this with my soul. From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks The Freshness

When it's cold and raining, you are more beautiful. And the snow brings me even closer to your lips. The inner secret, that which was never born, you are that freshness, and I am with you now. I can't explain the goings, or the comings. You enter suddenly, and I am nowhere again. Inside the majesty. From Soul of Rumi by Coleman Barks Some Kiss We Want There is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of spirit on the body. Seawater begs the pearl to break its shell. And the lily, how passionately it needs some wild darling! At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me. Close the language- door and open the love window. The moon won't use the door, only the window. From Soul of Rumi by Coleman Barks

Poetry of Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore was a recognized poet, philosopher and thinker. In 1913 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. His poetry calls out for a re-connection with the divine in every moment we live on Earth. The first few poems are from Tagore's Gitanjali. The others are selected from a book titled, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action-Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. -Gitanjali The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long. I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wilderness of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet. It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune. The traveler has to knock at every alien

door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said, "Here art thou!" The question and the cry, "Oh, where?" melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance, "I am!" -Gitanjali I drive down into the depth of the ocean of forms, hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless. No more sailing from harbour to harbour with this my weather-beaten boat. The days are long passed when my sport was to be tossed on waves. And now I am eager to die into the deathless. Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss where swells up the music of toneless strings I shall take this harp of my life. I shall tune it to the notes of forever, and, when it has sobbed out its last utterance, lay down my silent harp at the feet of the silent. -Gitanjali, translated from original Bengali by Tagore Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind. That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that it was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart. -Gitanjali, translated from original Bengali by Tagore Worker Of The Universe It is only the revelation of You as the Infinite that is endlessly new and eternally beautiful in us and that gives the only meaning to our self when we feel Your rhythmic throb as soul-life, the whole world in our own souls; then are we free. O Worker of the universe! Let the irresistible current of Your universal energy come like the impetuous south wind of spring; let it come rushing over the vast field of human life. Let our newly awakened powers cry out for unlimited fulfillment in leaf and flower and fruit. - from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc. The Grasp Of Your Hand Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it. Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved, but hope for the patience to win my freedom. Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling Your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of Your hand in my failure. - from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc. Life of My Life

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that Your living touch is upon all my limbs. I shall ever try to keep all untruths from my thoughts, knowing that You are the truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind. I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that You have Your seat in the inmost shrine of my heart. It shall be my endeavor to reveal You in my actions, knowing it is Your power that gives me strength to act. - from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc. I seem to have loved you I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times... In life after life, in age after age, forever. My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs, That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms, In life after life, in age after age, forever. Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age old pain, Its ancient tale of being apart or together. As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge, Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time. You become an image of what is remembered forever. You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount. At the heart of time, love of one for another. We have played along side millions of lovers, Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting, the distressful tears of farewell, Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever. My Polar Star

I have made You the polar star of my existence; never again can I lose my way in the voyage of life. Wherever I go, You are always there to shower your benefience all around me. Your face is ever present before my mind's eyes. If I lose sight of You even for a moment, I almost lose my mind. Whenever my heart is about to go astray, just a glance of You makes it feel ashamed of itself. Rinse away in shower of light This cover of dirt I hide mySelf with! Awaken that which lies in deep slumber within me With a gentle touch of thy golden morning Sun! I the human wander lone in wonder amid this grand universe of unbounded space and time You the great keeper of universe Exist in its infinite wonders Lone in silence In the grand home of your own being! Through the limitless lands and times Through the incountable stars You are gazing at me I look up towards thee! All noise ceased in silence All worlds absorbed in deep peace Alone You are! Alone I am within, fearless! Fireflies I touch God in my song as the hill touches the far-away sea with its waterfall. The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

Let my love, like sunlight, surround you and yet give you illumined freedom. Love remains a secret even when spoken, for only a lover truly knows that he is loved. Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree. In love I pay my endless debt to thee for what thou art. Light Light, my light, the world- filling light, the eye-kissing light, the heart-sweetening light: Ah, the light dances, my Darling, at the center of my life; the light strikes, my Darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens; the wind runs wild; laughter passes over the earth. The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmine surge up on the crest of the waves of light. The light is shatteres into gold on every cloud, my Darling, and it scatters gems in profusion. Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my Darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks, and the flood of joy is abroad. - from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc. The Birds of the Wilderness My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes:

They are the cradle of the morning, they are the kingdom of the stars; My songs are lost in their depths. Let me but soar in that sky, in its lonely immensity! Let me but cleave its clouds and spread wings in its sunshine. - from The Gardener, published 1913 Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life. This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new. At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable. Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill. -from the Gitanjali There is a looker-on who sits behind my eyes. It seems he has seen things in ages and worlds beyond memory's shore, and those forgotten sights glisten on the grass and shiver on the leaves. He has seen under new veils the face of the one beloved, in twilight hours of many a nameless star. Therefore his sky seems to ache with the pain of countless meetings and partings, and a longing pervades this spring breeze, -the longing that is full of the whisper of ages without beginning. -from Lover's Gifts Let thy love play upon my voice and rest on my silence. Let is pass through my heart into all my movements. Let thy love like stars shine in the darkness of my sleep and dawn in my awakening. Let it burn in the flame of my desires. And flow in all current of my own love. Let me carry thy love in my life as a harp does its music, and give it back to thee at last with my life.

-from The Crossing Poetry by Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh's devotion to the path of truth is displayed strongly in his life and in his writings. During the Vietnam war Hanh worked hard to reconcile North and South Vietnam. He has devoted his life to generating and bringing peace forth in the world. These efforts got him noticed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. Hanh now lives in France. He teaches, writes and conducts retreats, encouraging many to seek and find peace within themselves and the world. List of Poems: Please Call Me By My True Names Non-Duality Inter-relationship Peace Is Every Step Our True Heritage Please Call Me By My True Names By Thich Nhat Hanh

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow--even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hinds. And I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp. My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion. This poem is from "Call Me By My True Names" The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press Non-Duality The bell tolls at four in the morning. I stand by the window, barefoot on the cool floor. The garden is still dark. I wait for the mountains and rivers to reclaim their shapes. There is no light in the deepest hours of the night. Yet, I know you are there in the depth of the night, the immeasurable world of the mind. You, the known, have been there ever since the knower has been.

The dawn will come soon, and you will see that you and the rosy horizon are within my two eyes. It is for me that the horizon is rosy and the sky blue. Looking at your image in the clear stream, you answer the question by your very presence. Life is humming the song of the non-dual marvel. I suddenly find myself smiling in the presence of this immaculate night. I know because I am here that you are there, and your being has returned to show itself in the wonder of tonight's smile. In the quiet stream, I swim gently. The murmur of the water lulls my heart. A wave serves as a pillow I look up and see a white cloud against the blue sky, the sound of Autumn leaves, the fragrance of hayeach one a sign of eternity. A bright star helps me find my way back to myself. I know because you are there that I am here. The stretching arm of cognition in a lightning flash, joining together a million eons of distance, joining together birth and death, joining together the known and the knower. In the depth of the night, as in the immeasurable realm of consciousness, the garden of life and I remain each other's objects. The flower of being is singing the song of emptiness.

The night is still immaculate, but sounds and images from you have returned and fill the pure night. I feel their presence. By the window, with my bare feet on the cool floor, I know I am here for you to be.

This poem is from "Call Me By My True Names" The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh. Inter-relationship You are me and I am you. Isn't it obvious that we inter-are? You cultivate the flower in yourself so that I will be beautiful. I transform the garbage in myself so that you do not have to suffer. I support you you support me. I am here to bring you peace you are here to bring me joy. Peace is Every Step Peace is every step. The shining red sun is my heart. Each flower smiles with me. How green, how fresh all that grows. How cool the wind blows. Peace is every step. It turns the endless path to joy. Our True Heritage The cosmos is filled with precious gems. I want to offer a handful of them to you this morning. Each moment you are alive is a gem, shining through and containing earth and sky, water and clouds.

It needs you to breathe gently for the miracles to be displayed. Suddenly you hear the birds singing, the pines chanting, see the flowers blooming, the blue sky, the white clouds, the smile and the marvelous look of your beloved. You, the richest person on Earth, who have been going around begging for a living, stop being the destitute child. Come back and claim your heritage. We should enjoy our happiness and offer it to everyone. Cherish this very moment. Let go of the stream of distress and embrace life fully in your arms. This poem is from "Call Me By My True Names" The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh. Poetry by Emily Dickinson List Of Poems: We Learned the Whole of Love... Hope is A Thing With Feathers... Our Journey Had Advanced... Tell All the Truth, But Tell it Slant... The Life We have is Very Great... The Mountains Stood in Haze... The Infinite, A Sudden Guest... I Dwell In Possibility... I'm nobody! Who are you?... The Only News I Know... We learned the whole of love, The alphabet, the words,

A chapter, then the mighty book-Then revelation closed. But in each other's eyes An ignorance beheld Diviner than the childhood's, And each to each a child. Attempted to expound What neither understood. Alas, that wisdom is so large And truth so manifold! Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. Our journey had advanced; Our feet were almost come To that odd fork in Being's road, Eternity by term. Our pace took sudden awe, Our feet reluctant led. Before were cities, but between, The forest of the dead. Retreat was out of hope,-Behind, a sealed route, Eternity's white flag before, And God at every gate.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant, Success in circuit lies, Too bright for our infirm delight The truth's superb surprise; As lightning to the children eased With explanation kind, The truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind. The life we have is very great; The life that we shall see Surpasses it we know because It is Infinity. But when all space has been beheld And all dominion shown, The smallest human heart's extent Reduces it to none. The mountains stood in haze, The valleys stopped below, And went or waited as they liked The river and the sky. At leisure was the sun. His interests of fire A little from remark withdrawn. The twilight spoke the spire. So soft upon the scene The act of evening fell We felt how neighborly a thing Was the invisible. The Infinite a sudden guest Has been assumed to be, But how can that stupendous come Which never went away? I dwell in Possibility-A fairer House than Prose-More numerous of Windows--

Superior--for Doors-Of Chambers as the Cedars-Impregnable of Eye-And for an Everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky-Of Visitors--the fairest-For Occupation--This-The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise-I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell! They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog! The only news I know Is bulletins all day From Immortality. The only shows I see, Tomorrow and Today, Perchance Eternity. The only One I meet Is God, -the only street, Existence; this traversed If other news there be, Or admirabler show -I'll tell it you. Poetry by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

CONVERSATION

God and I in space alone and nobody else in view. "And where are the people, O Lord," I said, "the earth below and the sky o'er head and the dead whom once I knew?"

"That was a dream," God smiled and said, "A dream that seemed to be true. There were no people, living or dead, there was no earth, and no sky o'er head; there was only Myself -- in you." "Why do I feel no fear," I asked, "meeting You here this way? For I have sinned I know full well-and is there heaven, and is there hell, and is this the Judgment Day?" "Nay, those were but dreams," the Great God said, "Dreams that have ceased to be. There are no such things as fear or sin; there is no you -- you never have been-there is nothing at all but Me."

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Solitude Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone. For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own. Sing, and the hills will answer; Sigh, it is lost on the air.

The echoes bound to a joyful sound, But shrink from voicing care. Rejoice, and men will seek you; Grieve, and they turn and go. They want full measure of all your pleasure, But they do not need your woe. Be glad, and your friends are many; Be sad, and you lose them all. There are none to decline your nectared wine, But alone you must drink life's gall. Feast, and your halls are crowded; Fast, and the world goes by. Succeed and give, and it helps you live, But no man can help you die. There is room in the halls of pleasure For a long and lordly train, But one by one we must all file on Through the narrow aisles of pain.

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox See?

If one proves weak whom you fancied strong, Or false whom you fancied true, Just ease the smart of your wounded heart By the thought that it is not you. If many forget a promise made, And your faith falls into the dust, Then look meanwhile in your mirror and smile, And say, 'I am the one to trust.' If you search in vain for an ageing face Unharrowed by fretful fears, Then make right now, and keep a vow To grow in grace with the years. If you lose your faith in the word of man

As you go from the port of youth, Just say as you sail, 'I will not fail To keep to the course of truth.' For this is the way, and the only way-At least it seems so to me. It is up to you, to be and to do, What you look for in others. SEE?

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Poetry By Mary Oliver List of Poems: The Journey Sleeping In the Forest Wild Geese Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) Morning Poem The Swan Bone Song of the Builders Where Does The Dance Begin.... The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!"

each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-determined to save the only life you could save. Sleeping in the Forest I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better. from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver Mary Oliver Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things. from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press Mary Oliver Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches,

in the morning in the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter. Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite, the oceanic fluids; it needs the body's world, instinct and imagination and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility, to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is -so it enters us -in the morning shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning; and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star. Morning Poem

Every morning

the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches --and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere. And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead --if it's all you can do to keep on trudging --there is still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted --each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver Mary Oliver The Swan Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air An armful of white blossoms, A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, Biting the air with its black beak? Did you hear it, fluting and whistling A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall Knifing down the black ledges? And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river? And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for? And have you changed your life?

Bone 1. Understand, I am always trying to figure out what the soul is, and where hidden, and what shape and so, last week, when I found on the beach the ear bone of a pilot whale that may have died hundreds of years ago, I thought maybe I was close to discovering something for the ear bone 2. is the portion that lasts longest in any of us, man or whale; shaped like a squat spoon with a pink scoop where once, in the lively swimmer's head, it joined its two sisters in the house of hearing, it was only two inches long and thought: the soul might be like this so hard, so necessary 3. yet almost nothing. Beside me the gray sea was opening and shutting its wave-doors, unfolding over and over its time-ridiculing roar;

I looked but I couldn't see anything through its dark-knit glare; yet don't we all know, the golden sand is there at the bottom, though our eyes have never seen it, nor can our hands ever catch it 4. lest we would sift it down into fractions, and facts certainties and what the soul is, also I believe I will never quite know. Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving, which is the way I walked on, softly, through the pale-pink morning light. from Why I Wake Early (2004) Song of the Builders On a summer morning I sat down on a hillside to think about God a worthy pastime. Near me, I saw a single cricket; it was moving the grains of the hillside this way and that way. How great was its energy, how humble its effort. Let us hope

it will always be like this, each of us going on in our inexplicable ways building the universe. from Why I Wake Early (2004) Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it. It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds. The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil. The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold. But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white feet of the trees whose mouths open. Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance? Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe, until at last, now, they shine in your own yard? Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education. When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking outward, to the mountains so solidly there in a white-capped ring, or was he looking to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea that was also there, beautiful as a thumb curved and touching the finger, tenderly, little love-ring, as he whirled, oh jug of breath, in the garden of dust? -from Why I Wake Early (2004)

Poetry By Mary Oliver List of Poems: The Journey Sleeping In the Forest Wild Geese Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) Morning Poem The Swan Bone Song of the Builders Where Does The Dance Begin... The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen

branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-determined to save the only life you could save. Poetry By Mary Oliver The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-determined to save the only life you could save. Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things. from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press Mary Oliver

Sleeping in the Forest I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better. from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver Mary Oliver Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press Mary Oliver Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning in the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter. Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite, the oceanic fluids; it needs the body's world, instinct and imagination and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility, to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is --

so it enters us -in the morning shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning; and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star. Morning Poem

Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches --and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere. And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead ---

if it's all you can do to keep on trudging --there is still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted --each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver Mary Oliver The Swan Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air An armful of white blossoms, A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, Biting the air with its black beak? Did you hear it, fluting and whistling A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall Knifing down the black ledges? And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river? And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for? And have you changed your life? Bone

1. Understand, I am always trying to figure out what the soul is, and where hidden, and what shape and so, last week, when I found on the beach the ear bone of a pilot whale that may have died hundreds of years ago, I thought maybe I was close to discovering something for the ear bone 2. is the portion that lasts longest in any of us, man or whale; shaped like a squat spoon with a pink scoop where once, in the lively swimmer's head, it joined its two sisters in the house of hearing, it was only two inches long and thought: the soul might be like this so hard, so necessary 3. yet almost nothing. Beside me the gray sea was opening and shutting its wave-doors, unfolding over and over its time-ridiculing roar; I looked but I couldn't see anything through its dark-knit glare;

yet don't we all know, the golden sand is there at the bottom, though our eyes have never seen it, nor can our hands ever catch it 4. lest we would sift it down into fractions, and facts certainties and what the soul is, also I believe I will never quite know. Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving, which is the way I walked on, softly, through the pale-pink morning light. from Why I Wake Early (2004) Poetry By Mary Oliver The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried.

But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-determined to save the only life you could save. Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things. from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press Mary Oliver Sleeping in the Forest I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better. from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver Mary Oliver

Back To Poetry Index

Photo by: 123rf.com List of Poems: The Journey Sleeping In the Forest Wild Geese Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) Morning Poem The Swan Bone Song of the Builders Where Does The Dance Begin.... Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning in the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter.

Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite, the oceanic fluids; it needs the body's world, instinct and imagination and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility, to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is -so it enters us -in the morning shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning; and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star.

Morning Poem

Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches --and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere. And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead --if it's all you can do to keep on trudging --there is still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted --each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver Mary Oliver The Swan Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air An armful of white blossoms, A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, Biting the air with its black beak? Did you hear it, fluting and whistling A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall Knifing down the black ledges? And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river? And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for? And have you changed your life? Song of the Builders

On a summer morning I sat down on a hillside to think about God a worthy pastime. Near me, I saw a single cricket; it was moving the grains of the hillside this way and that way. How great was its energy, how humble its effort. Let us hope

it will always be like this, each of us going on in our inexplicable ways building the universe. from Why I Wake Early (2004) Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it. It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds. The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil. The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold. But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white feet of the trees whose mouths open. Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance? Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,

until at last, now, they shine in your own yard? Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education. When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking outward, to the mountains so solidly there in a white-capped ring, or was he looking to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea that was also there, beautiful as a thumb curved and touching the finger, tenderly, little love-ring, as he whirled, oh jug of breath, in the garden of dust? -from Why I Wake Early (2004) Poetry By Pablo Neruda Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's unique style was recognized in 1971 when he won the Nobel prize for Literature. His poems are often passionate odes to love and nature, and he was once noted by the New York Times as "the most influential, and inventive poet of the Spanish language." List of Poems Too Many Names Ode To Enchanted Light * You Will Remember... Poetry * I Like for You To Be Still Poet's Obligation Past Clenched Soul * Your Voice Peels In the Center of the Earth

Keeping Quiet * Lost In the Forest The Word * *Also In Spanish Too Many Names Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays and the week with the whole year. Time cannot be cut with your weary scissors, and all the names of the day are washed out by the waters of night. No one can claim the name of Pedro, nobody is Rosa or Maria, all of us are dust or sand, all of us are rain under rain. They have spoken to me of Venezuelas, of Chiles and of Paraguays; I have no idea what they are saying. I know only the skin of the earth and I know it is without a name. When I lived amongst the roots they pleased me more than flowers did, and when I spoke to a stone it rang like a bell. It is so long, the spring which goes on all winter. Time lost its shoes. A year is four centuries. When I sleep every night, what am I called or not called? And when I wake, who am I if I was not while I slept?

This means to say that scarcely have we landed into life than we come as if new-born; let us not fill our mouths with so many faltering names, with so many sad formallities, with so many pompous letters, with so much of yours and mine, with so much of signing of papers. I have a mind to confuse things, unite them, bring them to birth, mix them up, undress them, until the light of the world has the oneness of the ocean, a generous, vast wholeness, a crepitant fragrance. Ode To Enchanted Light Under the trees light has dropped from the top of the sky, light like a green latticework of branches, shining on every leaf, drifting down like clean white sand. A cicada sends its sawing song high into the empty air. The world is a glass overflowing with water.

Read this poem in Spanish You will remember that leaping stream where sweet aromas rose and trembled, and sometimes a bird, wearing water and slowness, its winter feathers. You will remember those gifts from the earth: indelible scents, gold clay, weeds in the thicket and crazy roots, magical thorns like swords. You'll remember the bouquet you picked, shadows and silent water, bouquet like a foam-covered stone. That time was like never, and like always. So we go there, where nothing is waiting; we find everything waiting there. POETRY And it was at that age...Poetry arrived in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don't know how or when, no, they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me. I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way,

deciphering that fire and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating planations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe. And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, I felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke free on the open sky.

I Like For You to be Still I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you. It seems as though your eyes had flown away and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth. As all things are filled with my soul you emerge from the things, filled with my soul. You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream, and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away. It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove. And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you: Let me come to be still in your silence. And let me talk to you with your silence that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring. You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations. Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid. I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, distant and full of sorrow as though you had died. One word then, one smile, is enough. And I am happy, happy that it's not true. Poet's Obligation To whoever is not listening to the sea this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up in house or office, factory or woman or street or mine or harsh prison cell: to him I come, and, without speaking or looking, I arrive and open the door of his prison, and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent, a great fragment of thunder sets in motion the rumble of the planet and the foam, the raucous rivers of the ocean flood, the star vibrates swiftly in its corona, and the sea is beating, dying and continuing. So, drawn on by my destiny, I ceaselessly must listen to and keep the sea's lamenting in my awareness, I must feel the crash of the hard water and gather it up in a perpetual cup so that, wherever those in prison may be, wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation, I may be there with an errant wave, I may move, passing through windows, and hearing me, eyes will glance upward saying "How can I reach the sea?"

And I shall broadcast, saying nothing, the starry echoes of the wave, a breaking up of foam and of quicksand, a rustling of salt withdrawing, the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast. So, through me, freedom and the sea will make their answer to the shuttered heart. Past We have to discard the past and, as one builds floor by floor, window by window, and the building rises, so do we go on throwing down first, broken tiles, then pompous doors, until out of the past dust rises as if to crash against the floor, smoke rises as if to catch fire, and each new day it gleams like an empty plate. There is nothing, there is always nothing. It has to be filled with a new, fruitful space, then downward tumbles yesterday as in a well falls yesterday's water, into the cistern of all still without voice or fire. It is difficult to teach bones to disappear, to teach eyes

to close but we do it unrealizing. It was all alive, alive, alive, alive like a scarlet fish but time passed over its dark cloth and the flash of the fish drowned and disappeared. Water water water the past goes on falling still a tangle of bones and of roots; it has been, it has been, and now memories mean nothing. Now the heavy eyelid covers the light of the eye and what was once living now no longer lives; what we were, we are not. And with words, although the letters still have transparency and sound, they change, and the mouth changes; the same mouth is now another mouth; they change, lips, skin, circulation; another being has occupied our skeleton; what once was in us now is not. It has gone, but if the call, we reply; "I am here," knowing we are not, that what once was, was and is lost, is lost in the past, and now will not return. Clenched Soul We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening hand in hand while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin in my hand. I remembered you with my soul clenched in that sadness of mine that you know. Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away? The book fell that always closed at twilight and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet. Always, always you recede through the evenings toward the twilight erasing statues. Read this poem in Spanish You sing, and your voice peels the husk of the day's grain, your song with the sun and sky, the pine trees speak with their green tongue: all the birds of the winter whistle. The sea fills its cellar with footfalls, with bells, chains, whimpers, the tools and the metals jangle, wheels of the caravan creak. But I hear only your voice, your voice soars with the zing and precision of an arrow, it drops with the gravity of rain,

your voice scatters the highest swords and returns with its cargo of violets: it accompanies me through the sky. In the center of the earth I will push aside the emeralds so that I can see you--you like an amanuensis, with a pen of water, copying the green sprigs of plants. What a world! What deep parsley! What a ship sailing through the sweetness! And you, maybe---and me, maybe---a topaz. There'll be no more dissensions in the bells. There won't be anything but all the fresh air, apples carried on the wind, the succulent book in the woods: and there where the carnations breathe, we will begin to make ourselves a clothing, something to last through the eternity of a victorious kiss. Keeping Quiet Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. This one time upon the earth, let's not speak any language, let's stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be a delicious moment, without hurry, without locomotives, all of us would be together in a sudden uneasiness. The fishermen in the cold sea

would do no harm to the whales and the peasant gathering salt would look at his torn hands. Those who prepare green wars, wars of gas, wars of fire, victories without survivors, would put on clean clothing and would walk alongside their brothers in the shade, without doing a thing. What I want shouldn't be confused with final inactivity: life alone is what matters, I want nothing to do with death. If we weren't unanimous about keeping our lives so much in motion, if we could do nothing for once, perhaps a great silence would interrupt this sadness, this never understanding ourselves and threatening ourselves with death, perhaps the earth is teaching us when everything seems to be dead and then everything is alive. Now I will count to twelve and you keep quiet and I'll go. -from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Read this poem in Spanish Lost in the Forest Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips: maybe it was the voice of the rain crying, a cracked bell, or a torn heart. Something from far off it seemed deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth, a shout muffled by huge autumns, by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves. Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance climbed up through my conscious mind as if suddenly the roots I had left behind cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood--and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.