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Denise Levertov poem
When the white fog burns off,
the abyss of everlasting light
is revealed. the last cobwebs
of fog in the
black firtrees are flakes
of white ash in the world’s hearth.
Cold of the sea is counterpart
to this great fire. Plunging
out of the burning cold of ocean
we enter an ocean of intense
noon. Sacred salt
sparkles on our bodies.
After mist has wrapped us again
in fine wool, may the taste of salt
recall to us the great depths about us.
—Denise Levertov
the abyss of everlasting light
is revealed. the last cobwebs
of fog in the
black firtrees are flakes
of white ash in the world’s hearth.
Cold of the sea is counterpart
to this great fire. Plunging
out of the burning cold of ocean
we enter an ocean of intense
noon. Sacred salt
sparkles on our bodies.
After mist has wrapped us again
in fine wool, may the taste of salt
recall to us the great depths about us.
—Denise Levertov
dylan every grain of sand
I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.
—Bob Dylan
rilke (how can i keep my soul)
How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
—Juan Ramón Jimenéz
I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing happens! Nothing . . . Silence . . . Waves . . .
—Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and we are standing now, quietly,
in the new life?
—Juan Ramón Jimenéz
rilke (I live my life)
I live my life
in growing orbits,
which move out over
the things of the world.
Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
but that will be my attempt.
I am circling around God,
around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years.
And I still don’t know if I’m a falcon,
Or a storm, or a great song.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
me stream musings
To the west is home; to the east the trail beckons, lined with gold and mauve and ivory wildflowers leading to fields and sky. I glance to the east from time to time to startle my stranded gaze from settling downward, and in the early morning I revel in the mists hovering in the trees. But mostly I look into the stream, at the current hastening briskly by. My focus sharpens down to the riverbed, the darkness murky through the clear water. I see to the bottom, past the reflections, to the rocks and silt placed there by time.
Paradise abounds—dappled sunlight filters through the overhang of trees, reflections shimmer-dancing on the trunks, lily fronds cascade over the depths from the narrow banks, lichen tints the stone walls with a soft gray-green cast, and the wild red berries peer through as spirit eyes. The rocks break the flow and make eddies and ripples as the stream winds its way around the bend.
It’s the bridge, though, where I perch in fragile solitude, that gives life and drift to my wonder. I am not on land. I am suspended above the earth. I have found my place between knowing and believing.
