What is it that a poet knows

Source: Pixabay

What is it that a poet knows

                that tells him－'this is real?'

Some revelation, a gift of sight,

granted through an effort of the mind－

                                    of infinite delight. 

All the time I have been writing on the very edge of knowledge,

heard the real world whispering

                    with an indistinct and liquid rustling－

as if to free, at last, an inextricable meaning!

Sought for words simpler, smoother, more clean than any,

                            only to clear the air

of an unnecessary obstruction…

Not because I wanted to meddle with the unknown

        (I do not believe for a moment that it can be done),

but because the visible world seemed to be waiting,

                            as it always is,

somehow, to be revealed.

Whoever has once heard that music, in that quiet light, 

knows what he has to say, over again and over.

~ Louis Dudek

Maybe so, maybe not

Source: Favim

There once was a village that had among its people a very wise old man.  The villagers trusted this man to provide them answers to their questions and concerns.

One day, a farmer from the village went to the wise man and said in a frantic tone, “Wise man, help me.  A horrible thing has happened.  My ox has died and I have no animal to help me plow my field!  Isn’t this the worst thing that could have possibly happened?”  The wise old man replied, “Maybe so, maybe not.”  The man hurried back to the village and reported to his neighbors that the wise man had gone mad.  Surely this was the worst thing that could have happened.  Why couldn’t he see this?

The very next day, however, a strong, young horse was seen near the man’s farm.  Because the man had no ox to rely on, he had the idea to catch the horse to replace his ox — and he did.  How joyful the farmer was.  Plowing the field had never been easier.  He went back to the wise man to apologize.  “You were right, wise man.  Losing my ox wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.  It was a blessing in disguise!  I never would have captured my new horse had that not happened.  You must agree that this is the best thing that could have happened.”  The wise man replied once again, “Maybe so, maybe not.”  Not again, thought the farmer.  Surely the wise man had gone mad now.

But, once again, the farmer did not know what was to happen.  A few days later the farmer’s son was riding the horse and was thrown off.  He broke his leg and would not be able to help with the crop.  Oh no, thought the man.  Now we will starve to death.  Once again, the farmer went to the wise man.  This time he said, “How did you know that capturing my horse was not a good thing?  You were right again.  My son is injured and won’t be able to help with the crop.  this time I’m sure that this is the worst thing that could have possibly happened.  You must agree this time.”  But, just as he had done before, the wise man calmly looked at the farmer and in a compassionate tone replied once again, “Maybe so, maybe not.”  Enraged that the wise man could be so ignorant, the farmer stormed back to the village.

The next day troops arrived to take every able-bodied man to the war that had just broken out.  The farmer’s son was the only young man in the village who didn’t have to go.  He would live, while the others would surely die.

The moral of this story provides a powerful lesson.  The truth is, we don’t know what’s going to happen — we just think we do.  Often we make a big deal out of something.  We blow up scenarios in our minds about all the terrible things that are going to happen.  Most of the time we are wrong.  If we keep our cool and stay open to possibilities, we can be reasonably certain that, eventually, all will be well.  Remember: maybe so, maybe not. 

~ Richard Carlson

If you knew...

Source: Favim 

If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to.

~ Margaret Atwood

If you knew...

Source: Favim 

If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to.

~ Margaret Atwood

Quote: Knowledge of the world

Source: Tumblr/Favim

There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged. It is something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws which are constant. It has no rules. Only, in the long years which bring women to the middle of life, a sense of balance develops…when she is beginning to hate her used body, she suddenly finds that she can do it. She can go on living…

~ T. H. White

Quote: Knowledge of the world

Source: Tumblr/Favim

There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged. It is something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws which are constant. It has no rules. Only, in the long years which bring women to the middle of life, a sense of balance develops…when she is beginning to hate her used body, she suddenly finds that she can do it. She can go on living…

~ T. H. White

Quote: Cookery

Source: bayareabites

Cookery means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of Helen and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and spices, and all that is healing and sweet in the fields and groves and savory in meats. It means carefulness and inventiveness and willingness and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your grandmothers and the science of the modern chemist; it means much testing and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and French art and Arabian hospitality; and, in fine, it means that you are to be perfectly and always ladies — loaf givers.

~ John Ruskin

Quote: Cookery

Source: bayareabites

Cookery means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of Helen and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and spices, and all that is healing and sweet in the fields and groves and savory in meats. It means carefulness and inventiveness and willingness and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your grandmothers and the science of the modern chemist; it means much testing and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and French art and Arabian hospitality; and, in fine, it means that you are to be perfectly and always ladies — loaf givers.

~ John Ruskin

Quote on finding the way

Image by Miquel Àngel

When walking alone in a jungle of true darkness, there are three things that can show you the way: instinct to survive, the knowledge of navigation, creative imagination. Without them, you are lost.

~ Toba Beta

Quote on finding the way

Image by Miquel Àngel

When walking alone in a jungle of true darkness, there are three things that can show you the way: instinct to survive, the knowledge of navigation, creative imagination. Without them, you are lost.

~ Toba Beta

The Call

Photo credit: windzdb from morguefile.com

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.
Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.
But always it says: Wake up, my love. You are walking asleep.
There’s no safety in that!
Remember what you are, and let a deeper knowing
color the shape of your humanness.
There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.
There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.
How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!
Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are.
Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.
Remember, there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don’t be tight-lipped and stingy.
Spend yourself completely on the saying,
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Call

Photo credit: windzdb from morguefile.com

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.
Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.
But always it says: Wake up, my love. You are walking asleep.
There’s no safety in that!
Remember what you are, and let a deeper knowing
color the shape of your humanness.
There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.
There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.
How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!
Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are.
Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.
Remember, there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don’t be tight-lipped and stingy.
Spend yourself completely on the saying,
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Quote on spiritual knowledge

Photo credit: penywise from morguefile.com

rāja-vidyā rāja-guhyaḿ

pavitram idam uttamam

pratyakṣāvagamaḿ dharmyaḿ

su-sukhaḿ kartum avyayam

Spiritual knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed.

~  Srimad Bhagavad Gita (9.2)

Quote on spiritual knowledge

Photo credit: penywise from morguefile.com

rāja-vidyā rāja-guhyaḿ

pavitram idam uttamam

pratyakṣāvagamaḿ dharmyaḿ

su-sukhaḿ kartum avyayam

Spiritual knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed.

~  Srimad Bhagavad Gita (9.2)

Quote on passions governing life

Photo credit: jkt_de from morguefile.com

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

~ Bertrand Russell

Quote on passions governing life

Photo credit: jkt_de from morguefile.com

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

~ Bertrand Russell

Not knowing

Photo credit: gleangenie from morguefile.com

I may not know my original face

but I know how to smile.

I may not know the recipe for the diameter

of a circle but I know how to cut a slice

for a friend. I may not be Mary or the Buddha

but I can be kind. I may not be a diamond

cutter but I still long for rays of light

that reach the heart.

I may not be standing on the hill of skulls

but I know love when I see it.

~ Stephen Levine

Not knowing

Photo credit: gleangenie from morguefile.com

I may not know my original face

but I know how to smile.

I may not know the recipe for the diameter

of a circle but I know how to cut a slice

for a friend. I may not be Mary or the Buddha

but I can be kind. I may not be a diamond

cutter but I still long for rays of light

that reach the heart.

I may not be standing on the hill of skulls

but I know love when I see it.

~ Stephen Levine