Sixty-Six
Why is the sea king of a hundred streams?
Because it lies below them.
Therefore it is the king of a hundred streams.
If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility.
If he would lead them, he must follow behind.
In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed;
When he stands before them, they will not be harmed.
The whole world will support him and will not tire of him.
Because he does not compete,
He does not meet with competition.
Holding Hands
Your hand –
Only a hand
Until you touch
Me.
If it were only your hand
It would only be a hand –
If it were only your body,
It would only be a thing.
If it were not intentional,
But also unintentional,
It would not be from the heart.
You touched my love.
Joints, muscles
My fragile love –
Bone, skin
With your hands
Connecting tissue
Your fragile hands
Nerves
Which are precious to me
Blood vessels
Because they are fragile
Hair follicles
And yours.
Your hands could never be
More precious
For the rings and bracelets of a queen,
And a statue of precious stones
A thousand years old
Could never be
More valuable to me.
Your hands,
Only hands,
Until you held me
In your gentle hands.
Valediction, Forbidding Mourning
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go;
While some of their sad friends do say,
Now his breath goes, and some say, No;
So let us melt, and make no noise,
no tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears
Men reckon what it did and meant'
But trepidations of the spheres,
Though greater far, are innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence; for that it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we, by a love so far refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Careless, eyes, lips and hands to miss,
-- Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
like th' other foot obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circles just,
And makes me end where I begun.
American Hope
Hour to hour;
Day to day;
Month to month at most.
Empty of history,
No great mystery,
Just make enough money to coast.
Numb the pain
That could drive you insane;
What’s to gain if this sad old world should explode,
Or erode,
Or melt,
Or be frozen by hearts made of stone.
It’s become too easy for the mind to gloss
Over those who are dying on poverty’s cross,
And Ignore the mounting ecological cost,
And leave the answers to those who lead,
Seeking our solace in corporate greed,
In need of conviction, we don’t care how you plead;
As you put our money in national banks,
Which invest, in turn, in missiles and tanks.
(Don’t read the contract, just fill in the blanks),
And to save our elections,
And religious affections,
And consumer values we hold so dear,
And to maintain the compliance
Of our friends in alliance,
And destroy all defiance where it should appear,
We break our own laws,
Attack without cause:
In the eagle’s sharp claws are the shreds of our fear.
We are numbed in frivolity
In this brainwashed society
Without sense or sobriety, split into pieces
Of great isolation;
Too much imitation
To find consolation in a statue of Jesus.
Do you know what I mean?
Have you seen what I’ve seen?
Have you had the same dream
Of friendship between us?
Psalms 82: A Psalm of A'saph.
God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment
"How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked?"
Selah
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
I say, "You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, you shall die like men,
and fall like any prince.
(You shall) fall as one man, O princes!"
Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for to thee belong all the nations.
Lake Mann
“And God called the firmament Heaven”
-- Genesis 1:8
Waters of darkness
Become cold at the bottom,
Away from the sun,
But I have connection
To a power above the water,
Now saying, “Rise over with me!”
Swirling, gushing foam
Surges to bring my downfall, but
Balanced against velocity,
I have risen in my skis!
The Churn
The forms and the creatures have a purpose.
God said, I was a Hidden Treasure,
and I desired to be known.
Manifestation contains that Desire
to be known. Like a deep truth
inside a lie, like the taste of butter
in buttermilk, that's how Spirit
is held in form.
For a long time butter stays
invisibly present in the churn mixture.
Then a Prophet comes with a dasher, or it might be
just someone who has heard the words of a saint
and is connected to that one as an infant is
when it hears its mother. The baby doesn't understand
language, but it knows the voice-sound,
and gradually learns what the talking means.
We're all born dumb. Only God
did not have to be taught to speak,
though Adam learned without a nurse or a mother,
and Jesus came articulate into the world. But most of us
need a lot of attention, much shaking by the Sheikh,
much turning and paddling. Slowly the butter
emerges. Don't throw away buttermilk too soon!
Wait. Keep churning!
Do that work, and you'll begin to hear inside
the maundering drunktalk of drunkards
the Presence of the Winemaker, the Host
who served this wine to us.
