dancing particles

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?





Rumi
Photo:  Peter Bowers

i thank You God for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)






e.e. cummings

In My Wallet I Carry a Card

In my wallet I carry a card
which declares I have the power to marry.

In my wallet I carry a card
which declares I may drive.

In my wallet I carry a card
that says to a merchant I may be trusted to pay her.

In my wallet I carry a card
that states I can borrow a book in the town where I live.

In my hand I carry a card.
Its lines declare I am cardless,  carless,
stateless, and have no money.

It is buoyant and edgeless.
It names me one of the Order of All Who Will Die.





Jane Hirshfield
Photo:  Peter Bowers

A Cottony Fate

Long ago, someone
told me: avoid or.

It troubles the mind
as a held-out piece of meat disturbs a dog.

Now I too am sixty.
There was no other life.





Jane Hirshfield
Photo:  Peter Bowers

being to timelessness as it's to time

being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love will end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land

(do lovers suffer?all divinities

proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad?only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

-do lovers love?why then to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools,all's well





e.e. cummings
photo:  Peter Bowers

the grip of life

Say "death" and the whole room freezes--

even the couches stop moving,

even the lamps.

Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.

Say the word continuously,

and things begin to go forward.

Your life takes on

the jerky texture of an old film strip.

Continue saying it, hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,

it becomes another syllable.

A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.

Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.

Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.

neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,

each swallows and swallows the world.

The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.

(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)

Jane Hirshfield

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Rumi love bites

Move into your own quietness.

...

This turning toward what you deeply love saves you.

...

A rose opens because she is the fragrance she loves.






Rumi
The Glance, Songs of Soul-Meeting
Photo:  Peter Bowers

love pulsating

The air I am breathing was exhaled in ecstasy
By an an ancient sun.
This earth I am standing on
Was born of cosmic fire.
The blood flowing through my veins
Is as salty as the primordial ocean.
The space permeating my body
Is infinite as the space all around.

Above, below, to all sides, within,
The elements of the universe
Are engaged in their ceremony of delight.

This is my religion.
The attraction between suns
Is the same
As the love pulsating in my heart.






Lorin Roche
The Radiance Sutras, 34
Photo:  Peter Bowers

perfect poem

I've searched the world
For the perfect poem
And all I've found
Is silence

I would hand you the gift
Of my heart
But this is the gift
You gave me -

What words
Can rise
From this
Transparency? -

No lips
Are needed
For love
To kiss
Love





Kavita
Love Songs of the Undivided
Photo:  Peter Bowers

the sky

I like it with nothing. Is it
what I was? What I will be?
I look out there by the hour,
so clear, so sure. I could
smile, or frown—still nothing.

Be my father, be my mother,
great sleep of blue; reach
far within me; open doors,
find whatever is hiding; invite it
for many clear days in the sun.

When I turn away I know
you are there. We won’t forget
each other: every look is a promise.
Others can’t tell what you say
when it’s the blue voice, when
you come to the window and look for me.

Your word arches over
the roof all day. I know it
within my bowed head where
the other sky listens.
You will bring me
everything when the time comes.








William Stafford
Photo:  Peter Bowers

I hacked my way through six forests

I hacked my way through six forests
until the moon woke up inside me.
The sky's breath sang through me,
dried up my body's substance.
I roasted my heart in passion's fire
and found Shankara!







Lalla
English version by Ranjit Hoskote
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Intense cold makes water ice

Intense cold makes water ice.

Then the hard ice turns to slush

and back to water, so there are three

forms of consciousness: the individual,

the world, and God, which in the sun

of True Awareness melt to one flowing:

Lalla is that.

In meditation, I entered the love furnace,

burned impurities away, and as the sun

of a new knowing rose, I realized

that the words "Lalla" and "God"

point to this peacefulness.

Lalla
English version:   Coleman Barks
Photos:  Peter Bowers