Beauty

And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.

And he answered:

Where shall you seek beauty, and how

shall you find her unless she herself be your

way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except

she be the weaver of your speech?

The aggrieved and the injured say, 

"Beauty is kind and gentle.

Like a young mother half-shy of her

own glory she walks among us."

And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is

a thing of might and dread.

Like the tempest she shakes the earth

beneath us and the sky above us."

The tired and the weary say, "Beauty is

of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.

Her voice yields to our silences like a faint

light that quivers in fear of the shadow."

But the restless say, "We have heard her

shouting among the mountains, 

And with her cries came the sound of

hoofs, and the beating of wings and the

roaring of lions."

At night the watchmen of the city say,

"Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the 

east."

And at noontide the toilers and wayfarers

say, "We have seen her leaning over

the earth from the windows of the sunset."

In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall

come with the spring leaping upon the hills."

And in the summer heat the reapers say,

"We have seen her dancing with the autumn

leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her

hair."

All these things have you said of beauty, 

Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of

needs unsatisfied,

And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty

hand stretched forth,

But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.  

It is not the image you would see nor the

song you would hear,

But rather an image you see though you 

close your eyes and a song you hear though

you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark,

nor a wing attached to a claw,

But rather a garden for ever in bloom and

a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when

life unveils her holy face. 

But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the mirror.  

Kahlil Gibran 

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Nocturne

You are woken in the night
by something that cannot speak
in daylight, that has no purchase
in the hard currency of your life.

Outside is the shallow well
of a sleeping town; electric lights
peek faintly into black space,
and the lithe ghost of the dark

slips into the only house that
bids it welcome.  Your husband
lies snoring, dreams of another
world, offers you rough the gift

of aloneness:  Know this
what arrives here cannot
be other than itself, and
has no care for you.  It

has no words, and no respect
for yours, so finds your body,
colonises your spine, feeds
you up into the sea of stars.  You

may think you are changing,
or hope; but you are simply
failing to forget, allowing
stillness to be recognized.

You are momentarily disappearing,
to enter your own voice, see
with your own eyes, become
 the body you gave birth to;

you have returned to
your own faithfulness,
your own unimaginable
emptiness.





Andrew Colliver
via Poetry Chaikhana
Photo:  Peter Bowers

...content with not-knowing

(The Master) lets the confused

stay confused

if that is what they want

and is always available

to those with a passion for the truth.

In the welter of opinions

She is content with not-knowing.

She makes distinctions

but doesn't take them seriously.

She sees the world constantly breaking

apart, and stays centered in the whole.

She sees the world endlessly changing

and never wants it to be

different from what it is.  

Chuang-tzu

Adapted by Stephen Mitchell

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Prayer

Then a priestess said, Speak to us of Prayer.

And he answered, saying: 

You pray in your distress and in your need; 

would that you might pray also in the fullness 

of your joy and in your days of abundance.

For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself

into the living ether?

And if it is for your comfort to pour your

darkness into space, it is also for your 

delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.

And if you cannot but weep when your 

soul summons you to prayer, she should spur

you again and yet again, though weeping,

until you shall come laughing.

When you pray you rise to meet in the 

air those who are praying at that very hour,

and whom save in prayer you may not

meet.  

Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible

be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.

For if you should enter the temple for no 

other purpose than asking you shall not receive:

And if you should enter into it to humble 

yourself you shall not be lifted:

Or even if you should enter into it to

beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.

It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words.

God listens not to your words save when 

He Himself utters them through your lips.

And I cannot teach you the prayer of the 

seas and the forests and the mountains.

But you who are born of the mountains

and the forests and the seas can find their

prayer in your heart.

And if you but listen in the stillness of the 

night you shall hear them saying in silence,

"Our God, who art our winged self, it 

is thy will in us that willeth.

It is thy desire in us that desireth.

Is is thy urge in us that would turn our

nights, which are thine, into days which are 

thine also.

We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou

knowest our needs before they are born in us:

Thou art our need; and in giving us more

of thyself thou givest us all."

Kahlil Gibran 

Photo:  Peter Bowers