Miracle

Listen. Put on lightbreak.
Waken into miracle.

W. S. Graham

What we need is here

The Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names

that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

Wendell Berry, (Collected Poems 1957-1982)

Photo: The tabebuia impetiginosas are back! They will last for a few weeks in November, covering themselves completely in a cloud of pink 2 weeks from now. To think that I get to see them again, yet another year....

https://goo.gl/photos/KeZQuW2C5F4dtPLT7

Astonishment

"I can’t quite shake the astonishment. I can’t quite believe what my life keeps teaching me, that material existence is a thin veil thrown over a foundation of miracles so numerous and profound we almost invariably overlook them."

Martha Beck

Yes. Yes. Yes.

http://calmthings.blogspot.in/2016/09/you-love-roses-dont-you.html

A drop of your love

"Just because a drop of your love had blended in
I drank down the entire bitterness of life."

The original, in Punjabi:

Rall gai si es vich ik boond tere ishq di
Esse layi main zindagi di saari kudattan pee layi

Amrita Pritam

http://scroll.in/article/815278/the-story-of-amrita-pritams-final-love-poem

Album: https://goo.gl/photos/6hpXbpV9S9HD3HqP6

A river in the trees

Listening to the wind in the trees, especially during this beautiful leaf-falling season here, being amazed at hearing the sound of water up above - one of my favourite things.

The riverbed, dried-up, half-full of leaves.
Us, listening to a river in the trees.

Seamus Heaney, The Haw Lantern (Faber and Faber 1987)

http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.in/2016/02/two-lines.html

Cornucopia

The Cornucopia

Grapes grow up a difficult and
sloped terrain. A soft line of poplars
shimmer in the disappearing light.
At midnight, the poor move
into the train stations of Italy,
spread out blankets for the children,
and pretend to the police they have tickets
and are waiting for a train.

The statue of Bacchus is a contrast
with his right hand holding a shallow but
wine-brimming cup. His left hand
reaches easily into the cornucopia
where grapes ripen and burst open.
It is a vivid dream: to wake
from the statue's grace and life force
to the suffering in the streets.

But the truth is the cornucopia
is open to all who are alive,
who look and feel the world in
its pristine beauty -- as a dragonfly
hovering in the sunlight over clear
water; and who feel the world
as a luminous world -- as green plankton
drifting at night in the sea.

Arthur Sze

October

Blue skies
And dragonflies,
October.

Notes from a Ritual

Note 12: Receiving

http://whiletheworldisgoingplaces.blogspot.in/2015/11/12-receiving.html

Canopy Shyness

Have been photographing this for years, marveling at the patterns this creates, but never knew there is a name for it. And what a lovely name.

"Canopy shyness is the tendency of trees to reduce competition between adjacent trees by maintaining a space between branches."

Canopy Shyness: http://www.venerabletrees.org/canopy-shyness/

Rain Tree Raagaas: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106491954401233999557/albums/5975107197985931905

Happiness

 

Happiness

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life
to tell me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives
who boss the work of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile
as though I was trying to fool with them

And then one Sunday afternoon
I wandered out along the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees
with their women and children
and a keg of beer and an accordion.

Carl Sandburg

From blossom to blossom

"There's a shadow in your ultrasound. We'd like to investigate."
"Sure."
"You've come alone?"
"That's alright. Let's start."

*             *             *             *
"..There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom, to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom."

Li-Young Lee, 'From Blossoms'

From Blossom to Blossom: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106491954401233999557/albums/6084443235136463985

Keeping an eye on the world

The first November tabebuias in Cubbon Park

"I am an extremely busy person. I keep an eye on the world."

"Is it hard work keeping an eye on the world? Most certainly. I can remember the terrifying face of one woman I saw in the street, a face devoid of expression. I also keep an eye on thousands of slum-dwellers on the nearby slopes. I observe the seasonal changes in myself: I inevitably change with every season."

"You must be wondering why I keep an eye on the world. I was born with this mission. And I am responsible for everything in existence, even for those wars and crimes which cause so much physical and spiritual havoc."

"Keeping an eye on the world requires a lot of patience: I must wait for the ants to reappear. Patience. While watching the flowers open imperceptibly, little by little."

"But I still have not found the person to whom I should report my findings."

From Selected Crônicas by Clarice Lispector

A long time to come

Autumn

O Lord, it is time
The summer was so vast
Put your shadows on the sundials
And in the fields let the wind loose.

Order the last fruits to become ripe
Give them two more sunny days
Push them to fulfillment
And force the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

He who has no house now will not build one
He who is alone will be so for a long time to come
Will stay awake, read, write long letters
And restlessly walk in the park among the blown leaves.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Charlotte Schmid

Late September

I often think that the street sweepers must know, more than anyone else, which flowers bloom in which season. In this season their burden is mounds of orange and yellow ....


Late September

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106491954401233999557/albums/6061401261572532113

September

The luscious Rudrapalaash, the African Tulip, has started to bloom all over Bangalore, its "finger tips on fire", announcing that it's September again.

I am eagerly waiting for the return of the dragonflies next. They come in this season, and stay until the end of October.

Wide awake, cracked open

April in Maine
May Sarton

The days are cold and brown,
Brown fields, no sign of green,
Brown twigs, not even swelling,
And dirty snow in the woods.

But as the dark flows in
The tree frogs begin
Their shrill sweet singing,
And we lie on our beds
Through the ecstatic night,
Wide awake, cracked open.

There will be no going back.

The time of the almond tree

The time of the rain tree is not the time of the almond tree. While the rain trees are filling up their bare branches with a million fresh green leaves, their canopies thicker by the day, the almond trees are slowly turning golden-red and shedding their leaves, on the morning-walk streets. (You must someday speak to the road-sweepers, how intimately they must know each tree.)

And the mango trees have been abloom in their inconspicuous way since a while, their sharp fragrance exhuding promises of mangoes, their tanginess, followed by sweetness. The yellow jacaranda has begun to bloom all over the city last week. Soon they will make even the most insensitive person stop and stare. The dense cover of thick bunched-fist blooms on branches where the leaves have gracefully fallen, to make way for one brief glorious declaration of yellow.

And you, mute ghost, you walk among them, the only certainties in your world, while your fleeting fickle quicksilver seasons leave you dazed, afraid, the ground beneath your feet forever shifting.

December

"I stood on the library steps holding my books and looking for a minute at the soft hinted green in the branches against the sky and wishing, as I always did, that I could walk home across the sky instead of through the village."

Shirly Jackson

Dying

"What did we ever own that hadn't
the quality of seasons
their numerous dyings?"

Brian Patten

They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again

Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself,

like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking,
flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek
across the sky made me think about my life, the places
of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief
has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling,
the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place.

Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold
for a brief while, then lose it all each November.
Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst
weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves
come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields,
land on the pond with its sedges and reeds.

You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find
shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.

All we do is pass through here, the best way we can.

They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again.

Barbara Crooker

Orange against Gray, September

So September is the season of the lush orange flowers. Remember this, you Watcher of Seasons. The African Tulip tree, the Rudrapalaash. Tall tree with thick foliage, burning orange at the ends. Seen against dark cloudy skies. Orange against Gray. And oh, the same contrast on the road too, when you finally remember to look down. And oh, all this for free.

If something matters only to you, it still matters. So what if you are a one-person world, swirling around a sun only you can see. There were sun-less times too.

Every little thing, marked, measured, treasured, and rescued from the Darkness, that is probably right at the door, waiting, biding its hour.

While there is still time, note the Orange against the Gray. Sear it into your soul. Show it in your smile.

Asha