Without Brushing My Hair

The

Closer

I get to you, Beloved,

The more I can see

It is just You and I all alone

In this 

World.

I hear

A knock at my door,

Who else could it be,

So I rush without brushing

My hair.

For too

Many nights

I have begged for Your 

Return

And what

Is the use of vanity

At this late hour, at this divine season,

That has now come to my folded

Knees?

If your love letters are true dear God

I will surrender myself to

Who You keep saying

I

Am.

Hafiz

Translation:  Daniel Ladinsky

Photo:  Peter Bowers

affirmation

I have lived all my life with a terminal diagnosis, yet the naming of cancer is considered terminal whereas living is not. To surrender into the reality of living is to surrender into the reality of it always leading to death. Surrender into dying is therefore not necessarily different than surrendering into life. To utterly surrender. To willingly, lovingly, enthusiastically give myself into the flow of the mystery of living that is this moment and no other, this radical acceptance of observer coexisting with the process giving rise to observer/observed, is to refine in luminosity until everything is luminous. I am gripped with immense smiling just writing this. Surrender, not as a giving up or a resignation but surrender as ultimate life affirmation. May this become increasingly firm.




This journey of living and learning and sharing;
May it become clear for everyone.
May we soften our grasping.
May we embrace the mystery of this immediate universe manifesting all of us.
May we find refuge in heart felt reverence and functional love.

May our lives continue to weave together well for the sake of everyone.
May blessings abound.





with thanks
Tarchin Hearn
excerpt blog post
Green Dharma Treasury

December

"December" - what a poetic way to mark time - a collective, artistic flourish to capture the timeless.  If you asked anyone, they'd just say, "now".  But they'd have said that anyway, even for "July" or "September".  The timeless takes on "December" for a bit, then another name,  and another, but behind the names, behind the seasons, just Now.





Joan Ruvinsky
Photo:  Peter Bowers

What is Left to Say

The self steps out of the circle;
it stops wanting to be
the farmer, the wife, and the child.

It stops trying to please
by learning everyone's dialect;
it finds it can live, after all,
in a world of strangers.

It sends itself fewer flowers;
it stops preserving its tears in amber.

How splendidly arrogant it was
when it believed the gold-filled tomb
of language awaited its raids!
Now it frequents the junkyards
knowing all words are secondhand.

It has not chosen its poverty,
this new frugality.
It did not want to fall out of love
with itself. Young,
it celebrated itself
and richly sang itself,
seeing only itself
in the mirror of the world.

It cannot return. It assumes
its place in the universe of stars
that do not see it. Even the dead
no longer need it to be at peace.
Its function is to applaud.





Lisel Mueller
Photo:  Peter Bowers
with thanks:  Poetry Chaikhana