The Poetry Of HafizPoems on this page are translated by  both Thomas Rain Crowe, from his book, Drunk On the Wine of the Beloved     and selections from Daniel Ladinsky's translations.

  Hafiz, a Sufi poet, expressed in poetry love for the divine, and the intoxicating oneness of union with it.  Hafiz, along with many Sufi masters, uses wine as the symbol for love. The intoxication that results from both is why it is such a fitting comparison. Hafiz spoke out about the hypocrisy and deceit that exists in society, and was more outspoken in pointing this out than many poets similar to him.List of Poems:All the HemispheresFrom The Large Jug, DrinkI Have Learned So Much    Let Thought Become Your Beautiful Lover   School of TruthLaughing At the Word Two   I Know the Way You Can GetI've Said It Before and I'll Say It Again  Tired of Speaking Sweetly       Like The Morning BreezeWe Might Have To Medicate You     A Potted Plant      No More Leaving  

All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed seasonOnto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.Make a new water-mark on your excitementAnd love.

Like a blooming night flower,Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And givingUpon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existenceLie beside an equatorIn your heart.

Greet YourselfIn your thousand other formsAs you mount the hidden tide and travelBack home.

All the hemispheres in heavenAre sitting around a fireChatting

While stitching themselves togetherInto the Great Circle inside ofYou.

From: 'The Subject Tonight is Love' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

From the Large Jug, Drink

From the large jug, drink the wine of Unity,So that from your heart you can wash away the futility of life's grief.

But like this large jug, still keep the heart expansive.Why would you want to keep the heart captive, like an unopened bottle  of wine?

With your mouth full of wine, you are selflessAnd will never boast of your own ability again.

Be like the humble stone at your feet rather than striving to be like aSublime cloud: the more you mix colors of deceit,

the more colorless your ragged wet coat will get.

Connect the heart to the wine, so that it has body,Then cut off the neck of hypocrisy and piety of this new man.

Be like Hafiz: Get up and make an effort. Don't lie around like a bum.He who throws himself at the Beloved's feet is like a workhorse and will    be rewarded with boundless pastures and eternal rest.

From: Drunk on the Wine of the Beloved   Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe

I Have Learned So Much

I Have Learned So much from God That I can no longer Call Myself 

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. 

The Truth has shared so much of Itself With me 

That I can no longer call myself A man, a woman, an angel, Or even a pure Soul. 

Love has Befriended Hafiz so completelyIt has turned to ash And freed Me 

Of every concept and image 

my mind has ever known.

From: 'The Gift'  Translated by Daniel Ladinsky 

Let Thought Become Your Beautiful Lover

Let thought become the beautiful Woman.

Cultivate your mind and heart to that depth

That it can give you everythingA warm body can.

Why just keep making love with God's child-- Form

When the Friend Himself is standingBefore usSo open-armed?

My dear,Let prayer become your beautiful Lover

And become free,Become free of this whole worldLike Hafiz.

From: 'The Gift' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky 

School of Truth

O fool, do something, so you won't just stand there looking dumb.If you are not traveling and on the road, how can you call yourself a guide?

In the School of Truth, one sits at the feet of the Master of Love.So listen, son, so that one day you may be an old father, too!

All this eating and sleeping has made you ignorant and fat;By denying yourself food and sleep, you may still have a chance.

Know this: If God should shine His lovelight on your heart,I promise you'll shine brighter than a dozen suns.

And I say: wash the tarnished copper of your life from your hands;To be Love's alchemist, you should be working with gold.

Don't sit there thinking; go out and immerse yourself in God's sea.Having only one hair wet with water will not put knowledge in that head.

For those who see only God, their visionIs pure, and not a doubt remains.

Even if our world is turned upside down and blown over by the wind,If you are doubtless, you won't lose a thing.

O Hafiz, if it is union with the Beloved that you seek,Be the dust at the Wise One's door, and speak!

From: 'Drunk On the Wind of the Beloved'  Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe

Laughing At the Word Two

Only 

That Illumined One 

Who keeps Seducing the formless into form 

Had the charm to win my Heart. 

Only a Perfect One 

Who is always 

Laughing at the word Two 

Can make you know 

Of 

Love. 

From: 'The Gift' Translated by Daniel Ladinsky  Know The Way You Can Get

I know the way you can getWhen you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,Your sweet muscles cramp.Children become concernedAbout a strange look that appears in your eyesWhich even begins to worry your own mirrorAnd nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadnessAnd call an important conference in a tall tree.They decide which secret code to chantTo help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madnessThat arrays itself against the worldAnd throws sharp stones and spears intoThe innocentAnd into one's self.

O I know the way you can getIf you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apartEvery sentence your friends and teachers say,

Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scaleLike a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measureFrom every angle in your darknessThe beautiful dimensions of a heart you onceTrusted.

I know the way you can getIf you have not had a drink from Love'sHands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak ofThe vital needTo keep remembering God,So you will come to know and see HimAs being so PlayfulAnd Wanting,Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:Bring your cup near me.For all I care aboutIs quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care aboutIs giving Love! 

From: 'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz'     Translated by Daniel Ladinsky 

I've Said It Before and I'll Say It Again

I've said it before and I'll say it again:It's not my fault that with a broken heart, I've gone this way.

In front of a mirror they have put me like a parrot,And behind the mirror the Teacher tells me what to say.

Whether I am perceived as a thorn or a rose, it'sThe Gardener who has fed and nourished me day to day.

O friends, don't blame me for this broken heart;Inside me there is a great jewel and it's to the Jeweler's shop I go.

Even though, to pious, drinking wine is a sin,Don't judge me; I use it as a bleach to wash the color of hypocrisy away.

All that laughing and weeping of lovers must be coming from some other place;Here, all night I sing with my winecup and then moan for You all day.

If someone were to ask Hafiz, "Why do you spend all your time sitting inThe Winehouse door?," to this man I would say, "From there, standing,  I can see both the Path and the Way.

From: Drunk on the Wind of the BelovedTranslated by Thomas Rain Crowe

Tired of Speaking Sweetly

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage andCould give the Beloved His choice, some nights,He would just drag you around the roomBy your hair,Ripping from your grip all those toys in the worldThat bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetlyAnd wants to rip to shredsAll your erroneous notions of truth

That make you fight within yourself, dear one,And with others,

Causing the world to weep

On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,Lock us inside of a tiny room with HimselfAnd practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wantsTo do us a great favor:

Hold us upside downAnd shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hearHe is in such a "playful drunken mood"Most everyone I knowQuickly packs their bags and hightails itOut of town.

From: 'The Gift'Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Like The Morning Breeze

Like the morning breeze, if you bring to the morning good deeds,The rose of our desire will open and bloom.

Go forward, and make advances down this road of love;In forward motion, the pain is great.

To beg at the door of the Winehouse is a wonderful alchemy.If you practice this, soon you will be converting dust into gold.

O heart, if only once you experience the light of purity,Like a laughing candle, you can abandon the life you live in your head.

But if you are still yearning for cheap wine and a beautiful face,Don't go out looking for an enlightened job.

Hafiz, if you are listening to this good advice,The road of Love and its enrichment are right around the curve.

From: Drunk on the Wind of the BelovedTranslated by Thomas Rain Crowe

We Might Have ToMedicate You

Resist your temptation to lieBy speaking of separation from God,

Otherwise,We might have to medicateYou.

In the oceanA lot goes on beneath your eyes.

Listen,They have clinics there tooFor the insaneWho persist in saying things like:

"I am independent from theSea,

God is not always around

Gently Pressing againstMy body."

From: 'The Gift'   Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

A Potted Plant

I pull a sun from my coin purse each day.

And at night I let my pet the moonRun freely into the sky meadow.

If I whistled,She would turn her head and look at me.

If I then waved my arms,She would come back wagging a marvelous tail Of stars.

There are always a few men like meIn this world

Who are house-sitting for God.We share His royal duties:

I water each day a favorite potted plantOf His--This earth.

Ask the Friend for love.Ask Him again.

For I have learned that every heart will getWhat it prays forMost.

From: 'The Subject Tonight Is Love'   Translated by Daniel Ladinsky 

No More Leaving

At Some pointYour relationshipWith GodWillBecome like this:

Next time you meet Him in the forestOr on a crowded city street

There won't be anymore

"Leaving."

That is,

God will climb intoYour pocket.

You will simply just take

Yourself

Along!

From: 'The Gift'   Translated by Daniel Ladinsky 

Jalaluddin RumiJelaluddin Rumi, the 13th century mystic poet, was truly one of the most passionate and profound poets in history.  Now, today his presence still remains strong, due in part to how his words seem to drip of the divine, and startle a profound rememberance that links all back to the Soul-Essence.  Born in what is present day Afghanistan in 1207, he produced his master work the Masnawi which consists of over 60,000 poems before he died in 1273.  The best way to fully say in words his impact, is that he has the ability to describe the Indescribable, Ineffable-- God.

 I have included two different translators of his work. Coleman Barks on the first two pages, Shahram Shiva on the third.

List of Poems: Moving WaterNot Intrigued With EveningThe Breeze At Dawn...There is A Way...For Awhile We Lived With People....This We Have NowBirdsong...Light Breeze

Only Breath      One Who Does What the Friend...   Not Here   If You Want What Visible Reality...Late By Myself...

Moving Water When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. When actions come from another section, the feelingdisappears.  Don't let others lead you.  They may be blind or, worse, vultures.Reach for the rope of God.  And what is that?  Putting aside self-will.Because of willfulness people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied,fish sizzle in the skillet. The anger of police is willfulness.  You've seen a magistrateinflict visible punishment.  Now  see the invisible.  If you could leave your selfishness, youwould see how you've been torturing your soul.  We are born and live inside black water in a well. How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don'tinsist on going where you think you want to go.  Ask the way to the spring.  Yourliving pieces will form a harmony.  There is a moving palace that floats in the airwith balconies and clear water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained

under a single tent. From The Glanceby Coleman Barks

Light Breeze

As regards feeling pain, like a hand cut in battle,consider the body a robe

you wear.  When you meet someone you love, do you kiss their clothes?  Search out

who's inside.  Union with God is sweeter than body comforts.We have hands and feet

different from these.  Sometimes in dream we see them.That is not

illusion.  It's seeing truly.  You do have a spirit body;don't dread leaving the

physical one.  Sometimes someone feels this truth so stronglythat he or she can live in

mountain solitude totally refreshed.  The worried, heroicdoings of men and women seem weary

and futile to dervishes enjoying the light breeze of spirit.The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsillwhere the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.Don't go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumiby Coleman Barks

Only Breath Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not HinduBuddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the Eastor the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, notcomposed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next,did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a traceof the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the twoworlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only thatbreath breathing human being. From Essential Rumiby Coleman Barks

Not Here

There's courage involved if you wantto become truth.  There is a broken-

open place in a lover.  Where arethose qualities of bravery and sharp

compassion in this group?  What's theuse of old and frozen thought?  I want

a howling hurt.  This is not a treasurywhere gold is stored; this is for copper.

We alchemists look for talent thatcan heat up and change.  Lukewarm

won't do. Halfhearted holding back,well-enough getting by?  Not here.

From Soul of Rumiby Coleman Barks

Two Friends

A certain person came to the Friend's doorand knocked."Who's there?""It's me."The Friend answered, "Go away.  There's no placefor raw meat at this table."

The individual went wandering for a year.Nothing but the fire of separationcan change hypocrisy and ego. The person returnedcompletely cooked,walked up and down in front of the Friend's house,gently knocked."Who is it?""You.""Please come in, my self,there's no place in this house for two.The doubled end of the thread is not what goes throughthe eye of the needle.It's a single-pointed, fined-down, thread end,not a big ego-beast with baggage."

From Essential Rumiby Coleman Barks

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comesAs an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,who violently sweep your houseempty of its furniture,still treat each guest honorably.He may be clearing you outfor some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,meet them at the door laughing,and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,because each has been sentas a guide from beyond.

From Essential Rumiby Coleman Bark

The Seed Market

Can you find another market like this?Where,with your one roseyou can buy hundreds of rose gardens?Where,for one seedget a whole wilderness?For one weak breath,a divine wind?You've been fearful

of being absorbed in the ground,or drawn up by the air.Now, your waterbead lets goand drops into the ocean,where it came from.It no longer has the form it had,but it's still waterThe essence is the same.This giving up is not a repenting.It's a deep honoring of yourself.When the ocean comes to you as a lover,marry at once, quickly,for God's sake!Don't postpone it!Existence has no better gift. No amount of searching will find this. A perfect falcon, for no reason has landed on your shoulder,and become yours.

From Essential Rumiby Coleman Barks

The Self We Share 

Thirst is angry with water. Hunger bitter with bread.The cave wants nothing to do

 with the sun. This is dumb, the self- defeating way we've been. A gold mine is

calling us into its temple. Instead, webend and keep picking up rocks from the

ground. Every thing has a shine like gold,but we should turn to the source! The

origin is what we truly are. I add a littlevinegar to the honey I give. The bite of

scolding makes ecstasy more familiar. Butlook, fish, you're already in the ocean:

just swimming there makes you friends withglory. What are these grudges about? You

are Benjamin. Joseph has put a gold cupin your grain sack and accused you of being

a thief. Now he draws you aside and says,"You are my brother. I am a prayer. You're 

the amen." We move in eternal regions, yetworry about property here. This is the

prayer of each: You are the source of mylife. You separate essence from mud. You

honor my soul. You bring rivers from the mountain springs. You brighten my eyes. The

wine you offer takes me out of myself intothe self we share. Doing that is religion.

From The Glanceby Coleman Barks

Two Kinds of Intelligence

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,as a child in school memorizes facts and conceptsfrom books and from what the teacher says,collecting information from the traditional sciencesas well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.You get ranked ahead or behind othersin regard to your competence in retaininginformation. You stroll with this intelligence

in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always moremarks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, onealready completed and preserved inside you.A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshnessin the center of the chest. This other intelligencedoes not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,and it doesn't move from outside to insidethrough conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainheadfrom within you, moving out.

From Essential RumiBy Coleman Barks

The Taste of Morning

Time's knife slides from the sheath,as fish from where it swims.

Being closer and closer is the desire of the body. Don't wish for union!

There's a closeness beyond that. Whywould God want a second God? Fall in

love in such a way that it frees youfrom any connecting. Love is the soul's

light, the taste of morning, no me, nowe, no claim of being. These words

are the smoke the fire gives off as itabsolves its defects, as eyes in silence,

tears, face. Love cannot be said.

From The Glance

by Coleman Barks

Shadow and Light Source Both

How does a part of the world leave the world?How does wetness leave water? Dont' try to

put out fire by throwing on more fire! Don'twash a wound with blood. No matter how fast

you run, your shadow keeps up. Sometimes it'sin front! Only full overhead sun diminishes

your shadow. But that shadow has been serving you. What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is

your candle. Your boundaries are your quest.I could explain this, but it will break the

glass cover on your heart, and there's nofixing that. You must have shadow and light

source both. Listen, and lay your head underthe tree of awe. When from that tree feathers

and wings sprout on you, be quieter thana dove. Don't even open your mouth for even a coo.

From Soul of Rumiby Coleman Barks

The Dream That Must Be Interpreted

This place is a dream.Only a sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,and you wake up laughingat what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.Everything cruel and unconsciousdone in the illusion of the present world,all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays,and it must be interpreted.

All the mean laughing,all the quick, sexual wanting,those torn coats of Joseph,they change into powerful wolvesthat you must face.

The retaliation that sometimes comes now,the swift, payback hit,is just a boy's gameto what the other will be.

You know about circumcision here.It's full castration there!

And this groggy time we live,this is what it's like:

 A man goes to sleep in the townwhere he has always lived, and he dreams he's livingin another town.                             In the dream, he doesn't rememberthe town he's sleeping in his bed in.  He believesthe reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

The dust of many crumbled citiessettles over us like a forgetful doze,

but we are older than those cities.

                                                    We beganas a mineral.  We emerged into plant lifeand into the animal state, and then into being human,and always we have forgotten our former states,except in early spring when we slightly recallbeing green again.                             That's how a young person turnstoward a teacher.  That's how a baby leanstoward the breast, without knowing the secretof its desire, yet turning instinctively.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,through this migration of intelligences,and though we seem to be sleeping,there is an inner wakefulnessthat directs the dream,

and that will eventually startle us backto the truth of who we are.

From Essential Rumiby Coleman Barks

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?I have no idea.My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.When I get back around to that place,I'll be completely sober.  Meanwhile,I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.The day is coming when I fly off,but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.If I could taste one sip of an answer,I could break out of this prison for drunks.I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry, I never know what I'm going to say.I don't plan it.When I'm outside the saying of it,I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

From Essential Rumiby Coleman Barks

A Smile and A Gentleness

There is a smile and gentlenessinside. When I learned the name

and address of that, I went to whereyou sell perfume. I begged you not 

to trouble me so with longing. Comeout and play! Flirt more naturally.

Teach me how to kiss. On the grounda spread blanket, flame that's caught

and burning well, cumin seeds browning,I am inside all of this with my soul.

From Essential Rumiby Coleman Barks

The Freshness

When it's cold and raining,you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings meeven closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again.Inside the majesty.

From Soul of Rumiby Coleman Barks

Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of 

spirit on the body. Seawaterbegs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionatelyit needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and askthe moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe intome. Close the language- door and

open the love window. The moonwon't use the door, only the window.

From Soul of Rumiby Coleman Barks

Poetry of Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore was a recognized poet, philosopher and thinker. In 1913 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. His poetry calls out for a re-connection with the divine in every moment we live on Earth. The first few poems are from Tagore's Gitanjali. The others are selected from a book titled,  The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;      Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action--

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-Gitanjali The time that my journey takes is longand the way of it long.  I came out on the chariot of the firstgleam of light, and pursued my voyagethrough the wilderness of worlds leavingmy track on many a star and planet.  It is the most distant course that comesnearest to thyself, and that training is themost intricate which leads to the uttersimplicity of a tune.  The traveler has to knock at every alien

door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds toreach the innermost shrine at the end.  My eyes strayed far and wide before Ishut them and said, "Here art thou!"  The question and the cry, "Oh, where?"melt into tears of a thousand streams anddeluge the world with the flood of the assurance, "I am!"

-GitanjaliI drive down into the depth of the ocean of forms, hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless.

No more sailing from harbour to harbour with this my weather-beaten boat.The days are long passed when my sport was to be tossed on waves.

And now I am eager to die into the deathless.

Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss where swells up the music of tonelessstrings I shall take this harp of my life.

I shall tune it to the notes of forever,and, when it has sobbed out its last utterance, lay down my silent harp atthe feet of the silent. 

-Gitanjali, translated from original Bengali by TagoreOnly now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind. 

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that it was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion. 

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart. 

-Gitanjali, translated from original Bengali by TagoreWorker Of The Universe

It is only the revelation of You as the Infinitethat is endlessly new and eternally beautiful in usand that gives the only meaning to our self whenwe feel Your rhythmic throb as soul-life, the wholeworld in our own souls; then are we free.

O Worker of the universe! Let the irresistiblecurrent of Your universal energy come like theimpetuous south wind of spring; let it comerushing over the vast field of  human life. Let ournewly awakened powers cry out for unlimitedfulfillment in leaf and flower and fruit.

- from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc.The Grasp Of Your Hand

  Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,but to be fearless in facing them.

  Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, butfor the heart to conquer it.

   Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

   Grant me that I may not be a coward, feelingYour mercy in my success alone; but let me findthe grasp of Your hand in my failure.

- from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc.Life of My Life

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my bodypure, knowing that Your living touch is upon allmy limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths from mythoughts, knowing that You are the truth whichhas kindled the light of reason in my mind.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from myheart and keep my love in flower, knowing thatYou have Your seat in the inmost shrine of myheart.

It shall be my endeavor to reveal You in my actions, knowing it is Your power that gives mestrength to act.

  - from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc.I seem to have loved you I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...In life after life, in age after age, forever.My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age old pain,Its ancient tale of being apart or together.As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.At the heart of time, love of one for another.We have played along side millions of lovers,Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,the distressful tears of farewell,Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.My Polar Star

I have made You the polar star of myexistence; never again can I lose my way in thevoyage of life.

Wherever I go, You are always there toshower your benefience all around me. Your faceis ever present before my mind's eyes.

If I lose sight of You even for a moment, Ialmost lose my mind.

Whenever my heart is about to go astray, justa glance of You makes it feel ashamed of itself.Rinse away in shower of lightThis cover of dirt I hide mySelf with!Awaken that which lies in deep slumber within meWith a gentle touch of thy golden morning Sun!I the human wander lone in wonderamid this grand universe of unbounded space and timeYou the great keeper of universeExist in its infinite wondersLone in silenceIn the grand home of your own being!

Through the limitless lands and timesThrough the incountable starsYou are gazing at meI look up towards thee!

All noise ceased in silenceAll worlds absorbed in deep peaceAlone You are!Alone I am within, fearless!Fireflies

I touch God in my song   as the hill touches the far-away sea     with its waterfall.The butterfly counts not months but moments,   and has time enough.

Let my love, like sunlight, surround you   and yet give you illumined freedom.

Love remains a secret even when spoken,   for only a lover truly knows that he is loved.

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil   is no freedom for the tree.

In love I pay my endless debt to thee   for what thou art.Light

Light, my light, the world- filling light, theeye-kissing light, the heart-sweetening light:

Ah, the light dances, my Darling, at thecenter of my life; the light strikes, my Darling, thechords of my love; the sky opens; the wind runswild; laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the seaof light. Lilies and jasmine surge up on the crest ofthe waves of light.

The light is shatteres into gold on every cloud,my Darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.

Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my Darling,and gladness without measure.  The heaven's riverhas drowned its banks, and the flood of joy isabroad.

- from the book, The Heart of God selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter. Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc.The Birds of the Wilderness

My heart, the bird of the wilderness,has found its sky in your eyes:

They are the cradle of the morning,they are the kingdom of the stars;My songs are lost in their depths.Let me but soar in that sky,in its lonely immensity!Let me but cleave its cloudsand spread wings in its sunshine.

- from The Gardener, published 1913Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vesselthou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales,and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits injoy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine.Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

-from the GitanjaliThere is a looker-on who sits behind my eyes. It seems he has seenthings in ages and worlds beyond memory's shore, and thoseforgotten sights glisten on the grass and shiver on the leaves. Hehas seen under new veils the face of the one beloved, in twilighthours of many a nameless star. Therefore his sky seems to ache withthe pain of countless meetings and partings, and a longing pervadesthis spring breeze, -the longing that is full of the whisper ofages without beginning.

-from Lover's GiftsLet thy love play upon my voice and rest on my silence.Let is pass through my heart into all my movements.Let thy love like stars shine in the darkness of my sleep and dawn    in my awakening.Let it burn in the flame of my desires.And flow in all current of my own love.Let me carry thy love in my life as a harp does its music, and give    it back to thee at last with my life.

-from The CrossingPoetry by Thich Nhat HanhVietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh's devotion to the path of truth is displayed strongly in his life and in his writings.  During the Vietnam war Hanh worked hard to reconcile North and South Vietnam. He has devoted his life to generating and bringing peace forth in the world.  These efforts got him noticed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. Hanh now lives in France. He teaches, writes and conducts retreats, encouraging many to seek and find peace within themselves and the world.

List of Poems:

Please Call Me By My True NamesNon-Duality

Inter-relationshipPeace Is Every StepOur True Heritage

Please Call Me By My True NamesBy Thich Nhat Hanh

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow--even today I am still arriving.  

Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. 

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. 

I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. 

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. 

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. 

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. 

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hinds. And I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp. 

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. 

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. 

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion. 

This poem is from "Call Me By My True Names" The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press   Non-Duality

The bell tolls at four in the morning.I stand by the window,barefoot on the cool floor.The garden is still dark.I wait for the mountains and rivers to reclaim their shapes.

There is no light in the deepest hours of the night.Yet, I know you are therein the depth of the night,the immeasurable world of the mind.You, the known, have been thereever since the knower has been.

The dawn will come soon,and you will seethat you and the rosy horizonare within my two eyes.It is for me that the horizon is rosyand the sky blue.

Looking at your image in the clear stream,you answer the question by your very presence.Life is humming the song of the non-dual marvel.I suddenly find myself smilingin the presence of this immaculate night.I know because I am here that you are there,and your being has returned to show itselfin the wonder of tonight's smile.

In the quiet stream,I swim gently.The murmur of the water lulls my heart.A wave serves as a pillowI look up and seea white cloud against the blue sky,the sound of Autumn leaves,the fragrance of hay-each one a sign of eternity.A bright star helps me find my way back to myself.

I know because you are there that I am here.The stretching arm of cognitionin a lightning flash,joining together a million eons of distance,joining together birth and death,joining together the known and the knower.

In the depth of the night,as in the immeasurable realm of consciousness,the garden of life and Iremain each other's objects.The flower of being is singing the song of emptiness.

The night is still immaculate,but sounds and images from youhave returned and fill the pure night.I feel their presence.By the window, with my bare feet on the cool floor,I know I am herefor you to be.

This poem is from "Call Me By My True Names" The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Inter-relationship

You are me and I am you. Isn't it obvious that we inter-are?You cultivate the flower in yourself so that I will be beautiful. I transform the garbage in myself so that you do not have to suffer. I support you you support me. I am here to bring you peace you are here to bring me joy.Peace is Every Step

Peace is every step. The shining red sun is my heart.Each flower smiles with me. How green, how fresh all that grows. How cool the wind blows. Peace is every step. It turns the endless path to joy. Our True Heritage

The cosmos is filled with precious gems.I want to offer a handful of them to you this morning.Each moment you are alive is a gem,shining through and containing earth and sky,water and clouds.

It needs you to breathe gentlyfor the miracles to be displayed.Suddenly you hear the birds singing,the pines chanting,see the flowers blooming,the blue sky,the white clouds,the smile and the marvelous lookof your beloved.

You, the richest person on Earth,who have been going around begging for a living,stop being the destitute child.Come back and claim your heritage.We should enjoy our happinessand offer it to everyone.Cherish this very moment.Let go of the stream of distressand embrace life fully in your arms.

This poem is from "Call Me By My True Names" The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh.Poetry by Emily DickinsonList Of Poems:

We Learned the Whole of Love...Hope is A Thing With Feathers...Our Journey Had Advanced...Tell All the Truth, But Tell it Slant...The Life We have is Very Great...The Mountains Stood in Haze...The Infinite, A Sudden Guest...I Dwell In Possibility...I'm nobody! Who are you?...   The Only News I Know...We learned the whole of love,The alphabet, the words,

A chapter, then the mighty book--Then revelation closed.

But in each other's eyesAn ignorance beheldDiviner than the childhood's,And each to each a child.

Attempted to expoundWhat neither understood.Alas, that wisdom is so largeAnd truth so manifold!Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the stormThat could abash the little birdThat kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,And on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me.Our journey had advanced;Our feet were almost comeTo that odd fork in Being's road,Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,Our feet reluctant led.Before were cities, but between,The forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope,--Behind, a sealed route,Eternity's white flag before,And God at every gate.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,Success in circuit lies,Too bright for our infirm delightThe truth's superb surprise;

As lightning to the children easedWith explanation kind,The truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind.The life we have is very great;The life that we shall seeSurpasses it we know becauseIt is Infinity.

But when all space has been beheldAnd all dominion shown,The smallest human heart's extentReduces it to none.The mountains stood in haze,The valleys stopped below,And went or waited as they likedThe river and the sky.

At leisure was the sun.His interests of fireA little from remark withdrawn.The twilight spoke the spire.

So soft upon the sceneThe act of evening fellWe felt how neighborly a thingWas the invisible.The Infinite a sudden guestHas been assumed to be,But how can that stupendous comeWhich never went away?

I dwell in Possibility--A fairer House than Prose--More numerous of Windows--

Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--Impregnable of Eye--And for an Everlasting RoofThe Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--For Occupation--This--The spreading wide my narrow HandsTo gather Paradise--I'm nobody! Who are you?Are you nobody, too?Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!How public, like a frogTo tell your name the livelong dayTo an admiring bog!The only news I knowIs bulletins all dayFrom Immortality.

The only shows I see,Tomorrow and Today,Perchance Eternity.

The only One I meetIs God, -the only street,Existence; this traversed

If other news there be,Or admirabler show -- I'll tell it you.

Poetry by 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

CONVERSATION

God and I in space aloneand nobody else in view.

"And where are the people, O Lord," I said,"the earth below and the sky o'er head

and the dead whom once I knew?"

"That was a dream," God smiled and said,"A dream that seemed to be true.

There were no people, living or dead,there was no earth, and no sky o'er head;

there was only Myself -- in you."

"Why do I feel no fear," I asked,"meeting You here this way?

For I have sinned I know full well--and is there heaven, and is there hell,

and is this the Judgment Day?"

"Nay, those were but dreams,"the Great God said,

"Dreams that have ceased to be.There are no such things as fear or sin;there is no you -- you never have been--

there is nothing at allbut Me."

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Solitude

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;Weep, and you weep alone.

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;Sigh, it is lost on the air.

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;Grieve, and they turn and go.

They want full measure of all your pleasure,But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;Be sad, and you lose them all.

There are none to decline your nectared wine,But alone you must drink life's gall.Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.There is room in the halls of pleasure 

For a long and lordly train, But one by one we must all file onThrough the narrow aisles of pain.

                                   by Ella Wheeler Wilcox See?

If one proves weak whom you fancied strong,   Or false whom you fancied true,

Just ease the smart of your wounded heart   By the thought that it is not you.

If many forget a promise made,   And your faith falls into the dust,

Then look meanwhile in your mirror and smile,   And say, 'I am the one to trust.'

If you search in vain for an ageing face   Unharrowed by fretful fears,

Then make right now, and keep a vow   To grow in grace with the years.

If you lose your faith in the word of man

   As you go from the port of youth,Just say as you sail, 'I will not fail   To keep to the course of truth.'

For this is the way, and the only way--   At least it seems so to me.

It is up to you, to be and to do,   What you look for in others. 

SEE?

                                             by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Poetry 

By Mary OliverList of Poems:

The JourneySleeping In the Forest

Wild GeesePoem (the spirit likes to dress up)

Morning PoemThe Swan

BoneSong of the Builders

Where Does The Dance Begin....The Journey

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice--though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"

each voice cried.But you didn't stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save.Sleeping in the Forest 

I thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds.I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,nothing between me and the white fire of the starsbut my thoughts, and they floated light as mothsamong the branches of the perfect trees.All night I heard the small kingdomsbreathing around me, the insects,and the birds who do their work in the darkness.All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morningI had vanished at least a dozen timesinto something better.

from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver © Mary OliverWild Geese

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove 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 rainare 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.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press© Mary OliverPoem (the spirit likes to dress up)

The spirit  likes to dress up like this:   ten fingers,    ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest  at night   in the black branches,

     in the morning

in the blue branches  of the world.   It could float, of course,     but would rather

plumb rough matter.  Airy and shapeless thing,   it needs      the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,  the oceanic fluids;   it needs the body's world,     instinct

and imagination  and the dark hug of time,   sweetness     and tangibility,

to be understood,  to be more than pure light   that burns     where no one is --

so it enters us --  in the morning   shines from brute comfort     like a stitch of lightning;

and at night  lights up the deep and wondrous   drownings of the body     like a star.Morning Poem

Every morning

the worldis created. Under the orange 

sticks of the sunthe heapedashes of the nightturn into leaves again 

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---and the ponds appearlike black clothon which are painted islands 

of summer lilies. If it is your natureto be happyyou will swim away along the soft trails 

for hours, your imaginationalighting everywhere. And if your spiritcarries within it 

the thornthat is heavier than lead ---if it's all you can doto keep on trudging --- 

there is stillsomewhere deep within youa beast shouting that the earthis exactly what it wanted --- 

each pond with its blazing liliesis a prayer heard and answeredlavishly, every morning, 

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy, whether or notyou have ever dared to pray. 

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver © Mary OliverThe Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -An armful of white blossoms,A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leanedinto the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,Biting the air with its black beak?Did you hear it, fluting and whistlingA shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfallKnifing down the black ledges?And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feetLike black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?And have you changed your life?

Bone

1.

Understand, I am always trying to figure outwhat the soul is,and where hidden,and what shape and so, last week,when I found on the beachthe ear boneof a pilot whale that may have diedhundreds of years ago, I thoughtmaybe I was closeto discovering something for the ear bone

2.

is the portion that lasts longestin any of us, man or whale; shapedlike a squat spoonwith a pink scoop whereonce, in the lively swimmer's head,it joined its two sistersin the house of hearing,it was onlytwo inches long and thought: the soulmight be like this so hard, so necessary 

3.

yet almost nothing.Beside methe gray seawas opening and shutting its wave-doors,unfolding over and overits time-ridiculing roar;

I looked but I couldn't see anythingthrough its dark-knit glare;yet don't we all know, the golden sandis there at the bottom,though our eyes have never seen it,nor can our hands ever catch it

4.

lest we would sift it downinto fractions, and facts certainties and what the soul is, alsoI believe I will never quite know.Though I play at the edges of knowing,truly I knowour part is not knowing,but looking, and touching, and loving,which is the way I walked on,softly,through the pale-pink morning light.

from Why I Wake Early (2004)Song of the Builders

On a summer morningI sat downon a hillsideto think about God -

a worthy pastime.Near me, I sawa single cricket;it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.How great was its energy,how humble its effort.Let us hope

it will always be like this,each of us going onin our inexplicable waysbuilding the universe.

from Why I Wake Early (2004)Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the whitefeet of the treeswhose mouths open.Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,until at last, now, they shinein your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he lookingoutward, to the mountains so solidly therein a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the ideathat was also there,beautiful as a thumbcurved and touching the finger, tenderly,little love-ring,

as he whirled,oh jug of breath,in the garden of dust?

-from Why I Wake Early (2004)

Poetry By 

Mary OliverList of Poems:

The JourneySleeping In the Forest

Wild GeesePoem (the spirit likes to dress up)

Morning PoemThe Swan

BoneSong of the Builders

Where Does The Dance Begin...The Journey

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice--though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.But you didn't stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save.

Poetry By 

Mary OliverThe Journey

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice--though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.But you didn't stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save.Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove 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 rainare 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.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press© Mary Oliver

Sleeping in the Forest 

I thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds.I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,nothing between me and the white fire of the starsbut my thoughts, and they floated light as mothsamong the branches of the perfect trees.All night I heard the small kingdomsbreathing around me, the insects,and the birds who do their work in the darkness.All night I rose and fell, as if in water,grappling with a luminous doom. By morningI had vanished at least a dozen timesinto something better.

from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver © Mary OliverWild Geese

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove 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 rainare 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.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press© Mary OliverPoem (the spirit likes to dress up)

The spirit  likes to dress up like this:   ten fingers,    ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest  at night   in the black branches,     in the morning

in the blue branches  of the world.   It could float, of course,     but would rather

plumb rough matter.  Airy and shapeless thing,   it needs      the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,  the oceanic fluids;   it needs the body's world,     instinct

and imagination  and the dark hug of time,   sweetness     and tangibility,

to be understood,  to be more than pure light   that burns     where no one is --

so it enters us --  in the morning   shines from brute comfort     like a stitch of lightning;

and at night  lights up the deep and wondrous   drownings of the body     like a star.Morning Poem

Every morningthe worldis created. Under the orange 

sticks of the sunthe heapedashes of the nightturn into leaves again 

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---and the ponds appearlike black clothon which are painted islands 

of summer lilies. If it is your natureto be happyyou will swim away along the soft trails 

for hours, your imaginationalighting everywhere. And if your spiritcarries within it 

the thornthat is heavier than lead ---

if it's all you can doto keep on trudging --- 

there is stillsomewhere deep within youa beast shouting that the earthis exactly what it wanted --- 

each pond with its blazing liliesis a prayer heard and answeredlavishly, every morning, 

whether or notyou have ever dared to be happy, whether or notyou have ever dared to pray. 

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver © Mary OliverThe Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -An armful of white blossoms,A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leanedinto the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,Biting the air with its black beak?Did you hear it, fluting and whistlingA shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfallKnifing down the black ledges?And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feetLike black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?And have you changed your life?Bone

1.

Understand, I am always trying to figure outwhat the soul is,and where hidden,and what shape and so, last week,when I found on the beachthe ear boneof a pilot whale that may have diedhundreds of years ago, I thoughtmaybe I was closeto discovering something for the ear bone

2.

is the portion that lasts longestin any of us, man or whale; shapedlike a squat spoonwith a pink scoop whereonce, in the lively swimmer's head,it joined its two sistersin the house of hearing,it was onlytwo inches long and thought: the soulmight be like this so hard, so necessary 

3.

yet almost nothing.Beside methe gray seawas opening and shutting its wave-doors,unfolding over and overits time-ridiculing roar;I looked but I couldn't see anythingthrough its dark-knit glare;

yet don't we all know, the golden sandis there at the bottom,though our eyes have never seen it,nor can our hands ever catch it

4.

lest we would sift it downinto fractions, and facts certainties and what the soul is, alsoI believe I will never quite know.Though I play at the edges of knowing,truly I knowour part is not knowing,but looking, and touching, and loving,which is the way I walked on,softly,through the pale-pink morning light.

from Why I Wake Early (2004)Poetry 

By Mary Oliver

The Journey

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice--though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save.Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove 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.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press© Mary OliverSleeping in the Forest 

I thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds.I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,nothing between me and the white fire of the starsbut my thoughts, and they floated light as mothsamong the branches of the perfect trees.All night I heard the small kingdomsbreathing around me, the insects,and the birds who do their work in the darkness.All night I rose and fell, as if in water,grappling with a luminous doom. By morningI had vanished at least a dozen timesinto something better.

from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver © Mary Oliver

Back To Poetry Index

Photo by: 123rf.comList of Poems:

The JourneySleeping In the Forest

Wild GeesePoem (the spirit likes to dress up)

Morning PoemThe Swan

BoneSong of the Builders

Where Does The Dance Begin....

Poem (the spirit likes to dress up)

The spirit  likes to dress up like this:   ten fingers,    ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest  at night   in the black branches,     in the morning

in the blue branches  of the world.   It could float, of course,     but would rather

plumb rough matter.

  Airy and shapeless thing,   it needs      the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,  the oceanic fluids;   it needs the body's world,     instinct

and imagination  and the dark hug of time,   sweetness     and tangibility,

to be understood,  to be more than pure light   that burns     where no one is --

so it enters us --  in the morning   shines from brute comfort     like a stitch of lightning;

and at night  lights up the deep and wondrous   drownings of the body     like a star.

Morning Poem

Every morningthe worldis created. Under the orange 

sticks of the sunthe heapedashes of the nightturn into leaves again 

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---and the ponds appearlike black clothon which are painted islands 

of summer lilies. If it is your natureto be happyyou will swim away along the soft trails 

for hours, your imaginationalighting everywhere. And if your spiritcarries within it 

the thornthat is heavier than lead ---if it's all you can doto keep on trudging --- 

there is stillsomewhere deep within youa beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted --- 

each pond with its blazing liliesis a prayer heard and answeredlavishly, every morning, 

whether or notyou have ever dared to be happy, whether or notyou have ever dared to pray. 

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver © Mary Oliver

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -An armful of white blossoms,A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leanedinto the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,Biting the air with its black beak?Did you hear it, fluting and whistlingA shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfallKnifing down the black ledges?And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feetLike black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?And have you changed your life?

Song of the Builders

On a summer morningI sat downon a hillsideto think about God -

a worthy pastime.Near me, I sawa single cricket;it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.How great was its energy,how humble its effort.Let us hope

it will always be like this,each of us going onin our inexplicable waysbuilding the universe.

from Why I Wake Early (2004)Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the whitefeet of the treeswhose mouths open.Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,

until at last, now, they shinein your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he lookingoutward, to the mountains so solidly therein a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the ideathat was also there,beautiful as a thumbcurved and touching the finger, tenderly,little love-ring,

as he whirled,oh jug of breath,in the garden of dust?

-from Why I Wake Early (2004)Poetry 

By Pablo Neruda

Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's unique style was recognized in 1971 when he won the Nobel prize for Literature. His poems are often passionate odes to love and nature, and he was once noted by the New York Times as  "the most influential, and inventive poet of the Spanish language."

List of PoemsToo Many Names

Ode To Enchanted Light *You Will Remember...  

Poetry   *I Like for You To Be Still

Poet's ObligationPast

Clenched Soul   *Your Voice Peels

In the Center of the Earth

Keeping Quiet   *Lost In the Forest

The Word     *

*Also In SpanishToo Many Names

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdaysand the week with the whole year.Time cannot be cutwith your weary scissors,and all the names of the dayare washed out by the waters of night.

No one can claim the name of Pedro,nobody is Rosa or Maria,all of us are dust or sand,all of us are rain under rain.They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,of Chiles and of Paraguays;I have no idea what they are saying.I know only the skin of the earthand I know it is without a name.

When I lived amongst the rootsthey pleased me more than flowers did,and when I spoke to a stoneit rang like a bell.

It is so long, the springwhich goes on all winter.Time lost its shoes.A year is four centuries.

When I sleep every night,what am I called or not called?And when I wake, who am Iif I was not while I slept?

This means to say that scarcelyhave we landed into lifethan we come as if new-born;let us not fill our mouthswith so many faltering names,with so many sad formallities,with so many pompous letters,with so much of yours and mine,with so much of signing of papers.

I have a mind to confuse things,unite them, bring them to birth,mix them up, undress them,until the light of the worldhas the oneness of the ocean,a generous, vast wholeness,a crepitant fragrance.Ode To Enchanted Light

Under the trees light has dropped from the top of the sky,light like a green latticework of branches,shining on every leaf, drifting down like clean white sand.

A cicada sends its sawing song high into the empty air.

The world is a glass overflowing with water.

Read this poem in SpanishYou will remember that leaping stream where sweet aromas rose and trembled, and sometimes a bird, wearing water and slowness, its winter feathers.

You will remember those gifts from the earth: indelible scents, gold clay, weeds in the thicket and crazy roots, magical thorns like swords. 

You'll remember the bouquet you picked, shadows and silent water, bouquet like a foam-covered stone. 

That time was like never, and like always. So we go there, where nothing is waiting; we find everything waiting there.POETRY

And it was at that age...Poetry arrivedin search of me. I don't know, I don't know whereit came from, from winter or a river.I don't know how or when,no, they were not voices, they were notwords, nor silence,but from a street I was summoned,from the branches of night,abruptly from the others,among violent firesor returning alone,there I was without a faceand it touched me.I did not know what to say, my mouthhad no waywith namesmy eyes were blind,and something started in my soul,fever or forgotten wings,and I made my own way,

decipheringthat fireand I wrote the first faint line,faint, without substance, purenonsense,pure wisdomof someone who knows nothing,and suddenly I sawthe heavensunfastenedand open,planets,palpitating planations,shadow perforated,riddledwith arrows, fire and flowers,the winding night, the universe.And I, infinitesimal being,drunk with the great starryvoid,likeness, image ofmystery,I felt myself a pure partof the abyss,I wheeled with the stars,my heart broke free on the open sky.

I Like For You to be Still

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.It seems as though your eyes had flown awayand it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.

As all things are filled with my soulyou emerge from the things, filled with my soul.You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:Let me come to be still in your silence.

And let me talk to you with your silencethat is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.One word then, one smile, is enough.And I am happy, happy that it's not true.Poet's Obligation

To whoever is not listening to the seathis Friday morning, to whoever is cooped upin house or office, factory or womanor street or mine or harsh prison cell:to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,I arrive and open the door of his prison,and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,a great fragment of thunder sets in motionthe rumble of the planet and the foam,the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,I ceaselessly must listen to and keepthe sea's lamenting in my awareness,I must feel the crash of the hard waterand gather it up in a perpetual cupso that, wherever those in prison may be,wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,I may be there with an errant wave,I may move, passing through windows,and hearing me, eyes will glance upwardsaying "How can I reach the sea?"

And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,the starry echoes of the wave,a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,a rustling of salt withdrawing,the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the seawill make their answer to the shuttered heart.Past

We have to discard the pastand, as one buildsfloor by floor, window by window,and the building rises,so do we go on throwing downfirst, broken tiles,then pompous doors,until out of the pastdust risesas if to crashagainst the floor,smoke risesas if to catch fire,and each new dayit gleamslike an emptyplate.There is nothing, there is always nothing.It has to be filledwith a new, fruitfulspace,then downwardtumbles yesterdayas in a wellfalls yesterday's water,into the cisternof all still without voice or fire.It is difficult to teach bonesto disappear,to teach eyes

to closebutwe do itunrealizing.It was all alive,alive, alive, alivelike a scarlet fishbut timepassed over its dark clothand the flash of the fishdrowned and disappeared.Water water waterthe past goes on fallingstill a tangleof bonesand of roots;it has been, it has been, and nowmemories mean nothing.Now the heavy eyelidcovers the light of the eyeand what was once livingnow no longer lives;what we were, we are not.And with words, although the lettersstill have transparency and sound,they change, and the mouth changes;the same mouth is now another mouth;they change, lips, skin, circulation;another being has occupied our skeleton;what once was in us now is not.It has gone, but if the call, we reply;"I am here," knowing we are not,that what once was, was and is lost,is lost in the past, and now will not return.Clenched Soul

We have lost even this twilight.No one saw us this evening hand in handwhile the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my windowthe fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sunburned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenchedin that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?Who else was there?Saying what?Why will the whole of love come on me suddenlywhen I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilightand my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the eveningstoward the twilight erasing statues.

Read this poem in SpanishYou sing, and your voice peels the husk of the day's grain, your song with the sun and sky, the pine trees speak with their green tongue: all the birds of the winter whistle. 

The sea fills its cellar with footfalls, with bells, chains, whimpers, the tools and the metals jangle, wheels of the caravan creak. 

But I hear only your voice, your voice soars with the zing and precision of an arrow, it drops with the gravity of rain, 

your voice scatters the highest swords and returns with its cargo of violets: it accompanies me through the sky.

In the center of the earth I will push asidethe emeralds so that I can see you---you like an amanuensis, with a penof water, copying the green sprigs of plants.What a world! What deep parsley!What a ship sailing through the sweetness!And you, maybe---and me, maybe---a topaz.There'll be no more dissensions in the bells.

There won't be anything but all the fresh air,apples carried on the wind,the succulent book in the woods:

and there where the carnations breathe, we will beginto make ourselves a clothing, something to lastthrough the eternity of a victorious kiss.

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelveand we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,let's not speak any language,let's stop for one second,and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,without hurry, without locomotives,all of us would be togetherin a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea

would do no harm to the whalesand the peasant gathering saltwould look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,wars of gas, wars of fire,victories without survivors,would put on clean clothingand would walk alongside their brothersin the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn't be confusedwith final inactivity:life alone is what matters,I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren't unanimousabout keeping our lives so much in motion,

if we could do nothing for once,perhaps a great silence wouldinterrupt this sadness,this never understanding ourselvesand threatening ourselves with death,perhaps the earth is teaching uswhen everything seems to be deadand then everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelveand you keep quiet and I'll go.

-from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Read this poem in SpanishLost in the Forest

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twigand lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,a cracked bell, or a torn heart.Something from far off it seemeddeep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,a shout muffled by huge autumns,by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprigsang under my tongue, its drifting fragranceclimbed up through my conscious mindas if suddenly the roots I had left behindcried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood---and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.