Topic: Verses for the Black-Winged and Ordinary

[nichi]

Fishing Out of Water

Suppose wisdom came from a wood stork,
that bald-headed drifter
you see standing in the grass
down by the fish-cleaning station—
his posture, neck drawn in, an old argument
with the past, his dark bill
looking more like burden than tool.
But when he flies, you trace
the black tips of his wings, his body
a soft, white arc
you know as perfect translation.
You’ve lost all doubt.
Doesn’t it make sense for him
when he lands, after tucking his wings
but before easing from stillness,
to ignore you and consider instead
the green-bladed view, inch by inch.
To pause, one foot raised,
weighing the long, thick, inexplicable day.


~Susan Meyers

[nichi]

Landscape

Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky-as though

all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.


Mary Oliver 

[nichi]

Daily
 
These shriveled seeds we plant,
corn kernel, dried bean,
poke into loosened soil,
cover over with measured fingertips
 
These T-shirts we fold into
perfect white squares
 
These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips
This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl
 
This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out
 
This envelope I address
so the name balances like a cloud
in the center of sky
 
This page I type and retype
This table I dust till the scarred wood shines
This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again
like flags we share, a country so close
no one needs to name it
 
The days are nouns:  touch them
The hands are churches that worship the world
 

 ~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~
 

[Jennifer-]

The hands are churches that worship the world

 

[nichi]

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

~Mary Oliver~

[nichi]

The Lover   

'A lover', said the hoopoe*, now their guide,
'Is one in whom all thoughts of self have died;
Those who renounce the self deserve that name;
Righteous or sinful, they are all the same!
Your heart is thwarted by the self's control;
Destroy its hold on you and reach your goal.
Give up this hindrance, give up mortal sight,
For only then can you approach the light.
If you are told: "Renounce our Faith," obey!
The self and Faith must both be tossed away;
Blasphemers call such action blasphemy --
Tell them that love exceeds mere piety.
Love has no time for blasphemy or faith,
Nor lovers for the self, that feeble wraith.


~Farid ud-Din Attar~
12th Century Iran


The Conference of the Birds
Translated by Afkham Darbandi & Dick Davis
Poetry Chaikhana

*Hoopoe:: The Hoopoes are a small Old World family of two or three species of similar birds. All have long, thin, and decurved bills; broad round wings; square tails crossed by a wide white band, and long erectile crests. 

[nichi]

The Fish

The first fish
I ever caught
would not lie down
quiet in the pail
but flailed and sucked
at the burning
amazement of the air
and died
in the slow pouring off
of rainbows. Later
I opened his body and separated
the flesh from the bones
and ate him. Now the sea
is in me: I am the fish, the fish
glitters in me; we are
risen, tangled together, certain to fall
back to the sea. Out of pain,
and pain, and more pain
we feed this feverish plot, we are nourished
by the mystery.

~ Mary Oliver ~

[nichi]

Birdsong
 

Birdsong brings relief
to my longing

I'm just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!

Please universal soul,
practice some song
or something
through me!

Rumi

[Michael]

so that's what they look like. ever since reading The Conference of the Birds, i have wondered =

love that hat

[nichi]

Grand hats indeed! 

[nichi]

Rumi and Shams


Rumi the poet was a scholar also.
But Shams, his friend, was an angel.
By which I don't mean anything patient or sweet.
When I read how he took Rumi's books and threw them
into the duck pond,
I shouted for joy.  Time to live now,
Shams meant.
I see him, turning away
casually toward the road, Rumi following, the books
floating and sinking among the screeching ducks,
 
oh, beautiful book-eating pond!
 
~ Mary Oliver ~

[nichi]

The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog


 
I never intended to have this life, believe me -
It just happened. You know how dogs turn up
At a farm, and they wag but can't explain.
 
It's good if you can accept your life - you'll notice
Your face has become deranged trying to adjust
To it. Your face thought your life would look
 
Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten.
That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.
Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed.
 
Sparrows in winter, if you've ever held one, all feathers,
Burst out of your hand with a fiery glee.
You see them later in hedges. Teachers praise you,
 
But you can't quite get back to the winter sparrow.
Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles.
Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and comes in.
 
  ~ Robert Bly ~

[nichi]

Sleeping and Waking

1.

All night someone is trying to tell you something.
The voice is a harbor, pulling you from underneath.

Where am I, you say, what's this and who are you?

The voice washes you up on the shore of your life.
You never knew there was land here.

2.

In the morning you are wakened by gulls.
Flapping at the window, they want you to feed them.
Your eyes blink, your own hands are pulling you back.

All day you break bread into small pieces,
become the tide covering your straight clear tracks.


~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~

[nichi]

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.


~Naomi Shihab Nye~

[nichi]

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.

 
Mary Oliver
Dream Work