Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Lost



















by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes besideyou
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat is as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Rumi and Silence


Back into the Reedbed!

Time to ignore sensible advice,
to untie the knots our culture

ties us with. Cut to the quick!
Put cotton in both sentimental

ears. Go back intothe reedbed.
let cane sugar rise again in you

No rules or daily duties. Those
do not bring the peace of silence.


translated by Coleman Barks,
The Soul of Rumi

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Wooing the Unknown (watching the mountain)


written for
Taos
Mountain,
New Mexico













Dark cloud shadow
covers the face of the mountain.
My own face inscrutable, in the mirror.

I sit with the question
what is the one thing I love most,
the one thing I want to share
most with the world.

The clouds move slowly. No wind.
Little humps of green, foothills, grow black.

The poplars begin to shake.
Bird peeps from the Cottonwood tree.
A dark cloud moves this way,
now half the mountain is clouded over.

Rain announcing its venue - it is coming.

First, it grows dark.
Jennifer Boire Taos Journal