” Even after all this time The sun never says to the earth, “You owe me.” Look what happens with a Love like that —It lights the whole Sky. ~ Hafiz.
If you keep taking stabs at utopia
sooner or later there will be scars.
Suppose there was a thermometer able to measure
contentment. Would you slide it under
your tongue and risk being told you were on par
with a thirteenth century farmer who lost
all his teeth in a game of hide and seek? Would you
be tempted to abandon your portable conscience,
the remote control that lets you choose who you are
for every occasion? I wish we cared more
about how we sounded than how we looked.
Instead of primping before mirrors each morning,
we’d huddle in echo chambers, practicing our scales.
As a kid, I thought the local amputee was dying in
pieces,
that his left arm was leaning against a tree in heaven,
waiting for the rest of him to arrive, as if God
was dismantling him like a jigsaw puzzle, but now
I understand we’re all missing something. I wish
there were Band Aids for what you don’t know, whisky
breath mints for sober people to fit in at wild parties.
There ought to be a Smithsonian for misfits,
where an insomniac’s clammy pillow hangs over
a narcoleptic’s drool cup, the teeth of an anorexic
displayed like a white picket fence designed
to keep food from trespassing. I wish the White House
was made out of mood ring rock, reflecting
the health of the nation. And an atheist hour
at every church, and needle exchange programs,
and haystack exchange programs too, and emotional
baggage thrift stores, a Mount Rushmore for assassins.
I’m sick of strip malls and billboards. I dream
of a road lit by people who set themselves on fire,
no asphalt, no rest stops, just a bunch of dead grass
with footprints so deep, like a track meet in wet cement.
{jeffrey mcdaniel; the scars of utopia}
“When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about. And that was the beginning of fairies.” – Finding Neverland
“Young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island, had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kites go higher and higher.
“It’s getting almost impossible to hear you,” said the young girl from her bedroom in Manhattan as she squinted through a pair of her father’s binoculars, trying to find her friend’s window.
“I’ll holler if I have to,” said her friend from his bedroom in the Sixth Borough, aiming last birthday’s telescope at her apartment.
The string between them grew incredibly long, so long that it had to be extended with many other strings tied together: his yo-yo string, the pull from her talking doll, the twine that had fastened his father’s diary, the waxy string that had kept her grandmother’s pearls around her neck and off the floor, the thread that had separated his great-uncle’s childhood quilt from a pile of rags.
Contained within everything they shared with one another were the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, and the quilt. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string.
The boy asked the girl to say “I love you” into her can, giving her no further explanation. And she didn’t ask for any, or say “that’s silly,” or “we’re too young for love,” or even suggest that she was saying “I love you” because he asked her to. Instead she said, “I love you.” The words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day should have pulled from her body.
The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he never could open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there.” – Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
I saw her in my dream,
And now my bed is all afloat with tears.
Tell her how much I yearn for her,
Oh moon, as now you glide towards the West!
Lady Sarashia was born in A.D. 1008 in Japan. Her real name is unknown. As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams was probaby written a year after her husband’s death when she was fifty years old, and recounts her life and travels, her family life and the wonders and sorrows she finds in the world
Boy Lilikoi
I want to be a lilikoi, Boy Lilikoi
You grind your claws, you howl, you growl unafraid of Hoi Polloi
You run, you’re free, you climb endless trees – You reignite
You growl, you howl, you show your teeth
You bite, it’s alright
Just say no more, use your eyes, the world goes and flutters by
Use your eyes, you’ll know you are
Use your eyes, the world goes and flutters by
Use your eyes, you’ll know you are
Wild be my boy, you burn so bright, till you illuminate
One day you’re out, you give up the fight, you slow down heart-rate
We all grow old, use your life, the world goes and flutters by
Use your life, you’ll know you are
Use your life, the world goes and flutters by
Use your life, you’ll know you are
Electricity wires are down, rainbow colours fade into brown
I dreamt your smile was shifting for good
Courageous boy, now you are gone
And run faster, yet have no place to go
Your spirit still burns, it’s now a ghost sun
You are……. (Alive)
You are……. (Alive)
I want to be a lilikoi, boy, you…
You grind your claws, you howl, you growl, unafraid of Hoi Polloi
Electricity wires are down, rainbow colours fade into brown
I dreamt your smile was shifting for good
Courageous boy, now you are gone
You run faster, yet have no place to go
Your spirit still burns, it’s now a ghost sun
You are……. (Alive)
You are……. (Alive)
Classic White T
THE ART OF DEVELOPING A BEAUTIFUL MIND. John O’Donohue
Your mind is your greatest treasure. We become so taken up with the world, with having and doing more and more that we come to ignore who we are and forget what we see the world with. The most powerful way to change your life is to change your mind. In this evening’s talk, we will explore ways of awakening, enriching and refining your mind. We will use lecture, conversation, story, poetry and meditation.
When you beautify your mind, you beautify your world. You learn to see differently. In what seemed like dead situations, secret possibilities and invitations begin to open before you. In old suffering that held you long paralysed, you find new keys. When your mind awakens, your life comes alive and the creative adventure of your soul takes off. Passion and compassion become your new companions. As St. Iraneus said in the 2nd Century: The glory of God is the human person fully alive.