death

The Song of the Women

Gill Washington Love, Poems, Rudyard Kipling, Spirituality , , , 0 Comment

 

By Rudyard Kipling

How shall she know the worship we would do her?
The walls are high, and she is very far.
How shall the woman’s message reach unto her
Above the tumult of the packed bazaar?
Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing,
Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing.

Go forth across the fields we may not roam in,
Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city,
To whatsoe’er fair place she hath her home in,
Who dowered us with walth of love and pity.
Out of our shadow pass, and seek her singing —
“I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing.”

Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her,
But old in grief, and very wise in tears;
Say that we, being desolate, entreat her
That she forget us not in after years;
For we have seen the light, and it were grievous
To dim that dawning if our lady leave us.

By life that ebbed with none to stanch the failing
By Love’s sad harvest garnered in the spring,
When Love in ignorance wept unavailing
O’er young buds dead before their blossoming;
By all the grey owl watched, the pale moon viewed,
In past grim years, declare our gratitude!

By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not,
By fits that found no favor in their sight,
By faces bent above the babe that stirred not,
By nameless horrors of the stifling night;
By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover,
Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her!

If she have sent her servants in our pain
If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword;
If she have given back our sick again.
And to the breast the wakling lips restored,
Is it a little thing that she has wrought?
Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought.

Go forth, O wind, our message on thy wings,
And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee speed,
In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings,
Who have been helpen by ther in their need.
All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat
Shall be a tasselled floorcloth to thy feet.

Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest!
Loud-voiced ambassador, from sea to sea
Proclaim the blessing, mainfold, confessed.
Of those in darkness by her hand set free.
Then very softly to her presence move,
And whisper: “Lady, lo, they know and love!”

 

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It is no gift I tender

Gill Washington A. E. Housman, Poems, Spirituality , , , 0 Comment

From:  Additional Poems IV

By A. E. Housman

It is no gift I tender,
A loan is all I can;
But do not scorn the lender;
Man gets no more from man.

Oh, mortal man may borrow
What mortal man can lend;
And ’twill not end to-morrow,
Though sure enough ’twill end.

If death and time are stronger,
A love may yet be strong;
The world will last for longer,
But this will last for long.

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The Beauty of Spring Blocks My Way

Gill Washington Poems, Thich Nhat Hanh , , , , 0 Comment

The Beauty of Spring Blocks My Way
by Thich Nhat Hanh

Spring comes slowly and quietly
to allow Winter to withdraw
slowly and quietly.
The color of the mountain afternoon
is tinged with nostalgia.
The terrible war flower
has left her footprints-
countless petals of separation and death
in white and violet.
Very tenderly, the wound opens itself in the depths of my heart.
Its color is the color of blood,
its nature the nature of separation.

The beauty of Spring blocks my way.
How could I find another path up the mountain?

I suffer so. My soul is frozen.
My heart vibrates like the fragile string of a lute
left out in a stormy night.
Yes, it is really there. Spring has really come.
But the mourning is heard
clearly, unmistakably,
in the wonderful sounds of the birds.
The morning mist is already born.
The breeze of Spring in its song
expresses both my love and my despair.
The cosmos is so indifferent. Why?
To the harbor, I came alone,
and now I leave alone.

There are so many paths leading to the homeland.
They all talk to me in silence. I invoke the Absolute.
Spring has come
to every corner of the ten directions.
Its, alas, is only the song
of departure.

1951. This was written less than twelve hours after I fell in love
with a nun. It happened at the Vien Giac Temple on New Year’s
Eve in the beautiful village of Cau Dat in the highlands. She was
twenty. Both of us realized that we wanted to continue being a
monk and a nun. So we decided to depart from each other. This
was not easy. I was lucky to having a loving and understanding
sangha with me at that time that made it possible. Forty-one years
later, I told this story in a twenty-one day retreat at Plum Village
in English, on the theme of Vipassana meditation in the Mahayana
tradition.

From Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh

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Non-Duality

Gill Washington Poems, Thich Nhat Hanh , , , 0 Comment

Non-Duality

by Thich Nhat Hanh

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 there
in the depth of the night,
the immeasurable world of the mind.
You, the known, have been there
ever since the knower has been.

The dawn will come soon,
and you will see
that you and the rosy horizon
are within my two eyes.
It is for me that the horizon is rosy
and 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 smiling
in the presence of this immaculate night.
I know because I am here that you are there,
and your being has returned to show itself
in 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 pillow
I look up and see
a 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 cognition
in 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 I
remain each other’s objects.
The flower of being is singing the song of emptiness.

The night is still immaculate,
but sounds and images from you
have 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 here
for you to be.

This poem is about an insight related to vijnanavada. It is a difficult poem, fit to be explained in a course on vijnanavada. You are there for me, and I am here for you. That is the teaching of interbeing. The term interbeing was not yet used at that time. Although we think of the Avatamsaka when we hear the term interbeing,the teaching of interbeing also has its roots in vijttanavada, because in vijnanavada, cognition always includes subject and object together. Consciousness is always consciousness of something.

From Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh

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A Visit From Wisdom

Gill Washington Kahlil Gibran, Poems , , , 0 Comment

Kahlil Gibran

In the stillness of night Wisdom came and stood
by my bed. She gazed upon me like a tender mother
and wiped away my tears, and said : “I have heard
the cry of your spirit and I am come to comfort it.
Open your heart to me and I shall fill it with light.
Ask of me and I shall show you the way of truth.”

And I said : “Who am I, Wisdom, and how came
I to this frightening place? What manner of things
are these mighty hopes and these many books and
strange patterns ? What are these thoughts that pass
as doves in flight? And these words composed by
desire and sung by delight, what are they? What are
these conclusions, grievous and joyous, that embrace
my spirit and envelop my heart? And those
eyes which look at me seeing into my depths and
fleeing from my sorrows ? And those voices mourning
my days and chanting my littleness, what are they ?

“What is this youth that plays with my desires
and mocks at my longings, forgetful of yesterday’s
deeds, rejoicing in paltry things of the moment,
scornful of the morrow’s coming?

“What is this world that leads me whither I know
not, standing with me in despising? And this earth
that opens wide its mouth to swallow bodies and
lets evil things to dwell on its breast? What is this
creature that is satisfied with the love of fortune,
whilst beyond its union is the pit? Who seeks Life’s
kiss whilst Death does smite him, and brings the
pleasure of a minute with a year of repentance, and
gives himself to slumber the while dreams call him?
What is he who flows with the rivers of folly to the
sea of darkness? O Wisdom, what manner of things
are these?”

And she answered, saying :
“You would see, human creature, this world
through the eyes of a god. And you would seek to
know the secrets of the hereafter with the thinking
of men. Yet in truth is this the height of folly.
“Go you to the wild places and you shall find
there the bee above the flowers and behold the eagle
swooping down on his prey. Go you into your neighbor’s
house and see then the child blinking at the
firelight and his mother busied at her household
tasks. Be you like the bee and spend not the days of
spring looking on the eagle’s doing. Be as the child
and rejoice in the firelight and heed not your mother’s
affairs. All that you see with your eyes was and
is for your sake.

“The many books and the strange patterns and
beautiful thoughts are the shades of those spirits
that came ere you were come. The words that you
do weave are a bond between you and your brothers.
The conclusions, grievous and joyous, are the
seeds that the past did scatter in the field of the
spirit to be reaped by the future. That youth who
plays with your desires is he who will open the door
of your heart to let enter the light. This earth with
the ever open mouth is the savior of your spirit from
the body’s slavery. This world which walks with
you is your heart; and your heart is all that you
think that world. This creature whom you see as
ignorant and small is the same who has come from
God’s side to learn pity through sadness, and knowledge
by way of darkness.”

Then Wisdom put her hand on my burning brow
and said :
“Go then forward and do not tarry, for before
walks perfection. Go, and have not fear of thorns
on the path, for they deem naught lawful save corrupted blood.”

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Holy Sonnets – X

Gill Washington John Donne, Poems , , 0 Comment

 

John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Holy Sonnets – I

Gill Washington John Donne, Poems , , , 0 Comment

 

John Donne

THOU hast made me, And shall thy worke decay?
Repaire me now, for now mine end doth haste,
I runne to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dimme eyes any way,
Despaire behind, and death before doth cast
Such terrour, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sinne in it, which it t’wards hell doth weigh;
Onely thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can looke, I rise againe;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one houre my selfe I can sustaine;
Thy Grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like Adamant draw mine iron heart.