deep innerness of all things

You are the future, 

the red sky before sunrise

over the fields of time.

You are the cock's crow when night is done,

you are the dew and the bells of matins,

maiden, stranger, mother, death.

You create yourself in ever-changing shapes

that rise from the stuff of our days -

unsung, unmourned, undescribed,

like a forest we never know.

You are the deep innerness of all things,

the last word that can never be spoken.

To each of us you reveal yourself differently:

to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Book of Hours, II.22

Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

photo:  Peter Bowers

its own beauty

The world is no more than the Beloved's single face;

In the desire of the One to know its own beauty, we exist.

Each place, each moment, sings its particular song of not-being and being.

Without reason, the clear glass equally mirrors wisdom and madness.

Those who claim knowledge are wrong; prayer just leads to trance;

Appearance and faith are mere lees in the Unknowing Wine.

Wherever the Footprint is found,

the handful of dust holds the oneness of worlds.  

This earth, burnished by hearing the Name, is so certain of Love

That the sky bends unceasingly down, to greet its own light.

Ghalib

Translated by Jane Hirshfield

Photo:  Peter Bowers