Rumination + Illustration = Illumination

“Those I love. Being. Living my life without being diverted into things that people so often get diverted into. Being alive is so extraordinary I don’t know why people limit it to riches, pride, security—all of those things life is built on. People miss so much because they want money and comfort and pride, a house and a job to pay for the house. And they have to get a car. You can’t see anything from a car. It’s moving too fast. People take vacations. That’s their reward—the vacation. Why not the life? Vacations are second-rate. People deprive themselves of so much of their lives—until it’s too late. Though I understand that often you don’t have a choice.”

* Jack Gilbert

A seed that cannot bear fruit becomes nothing but an

            empty head of grain,

when a seed becomes fruit,

it has transcended its lifecycle, turning into a new seed

            once again.

* Beop Jeong Sunim

I love listening to the poetry at this site; it’s a great teaching resource, too.

Here’s a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o’ care, man?

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.

* Robert Burns, A Bottle and Friend

‘We should not be dismayed, suggests Murray, by the elusive, flickering, on-off quality of our contact with the numinous. Rather, we should learn to wait with equanimity—as poet or as believer—for the next flash of grace.’

This quote by J. M. Coetzee is part of a lovely Poem for Sunday post at the Daily Dish, the poem being Les Murray’s Equanimity.

The Way the World Ends

I am staring at the secret
where the water meets the sky
and the horizon still believes
in all the clouds that whistle by.
I feel the wind that runs its fingers
through the grasses, through the sky,
wind that blows and glows the embers
of something small to keep me high.

The world is growing softer
It erodes more every day,
and the rock wears into sand
that melts into the sea
so that all along the jagged coast
the line is giving way
but the tumble of the cliffs and plants
is irrelevant to me.

This is the way the world ends
in the corrosive tang of spray,
in the actions of white horses,
the only sure thing is decay
while the rock becomes the sand
becomes the glass becomes the pane.
In the secrets of horizons
we are beaten down by rain
while infinite dark forces
are giving birth to stars.

This is the way the world ends
not with panes but broken shards.

* Rick Strong

Happy birthday for yesterday, Rick.

“We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.”

* T. S. Eliot

‘Your stepping inwards from the air to earth
Winds round itself to meet the open sky
So vanishing becomes a second birth.
Fare well. Return. Fare well. Return again.
Here home and elsewhere share one mystery.
Here love and conscience sing the same refrain.
Here time leaps up. And strikes eternity.’

* Andrew Motion, Saint Martin-in-the-Fields Church, London