"the Earth is worthy to inhabit"

n this day in 1852, Henry David Thoreau (books by this author) wrote in his journal, recording his observations of the woods and fields around Concord, Massachusetts. On this day, he wrote:

"Down the Boston road and across to Turnpike, etc., etc. The elms are now generally in blossom and Cheney's elm still also. The last has leaf-buds which show the white. Now, before any leaves have appeared, their blossoms clothe the trees with a rich, warm brown color, which serves partially for foliage to the street-walker, and makes the tree more obvious. ... It is a beautiful day, — a mild air, — and all farmers and gardeners out and at work. Now is the time to set trees and consider what things you will plant in your garden. Yesterday I observed many fields newly plowed, the yellow soil looking very warm and dry in the sun; and one boy had fixed his handkerchief on a stick and elevated it on the yoke, where it flapped or streamed and rippled gaily in the wind, as he drove his oxen dragging a harrow over the plowed field. [...] Dodging behind a swell of land to avoid the men who were plowing, I saw unexpectedly (when I looked to see if we were concealed by the field) the blue mountains' line in the west (the whole intermediate earth and towns being concealed), this greenish field for a foreground sloping upward a few rods, and then those grand mountains seen over it in the background, so blue, —seashore, earth-shore, — and, warm as it is, covered with snow which reflected the sun. Then when I turned, I saw in the cast, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two-thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. Such a sight excites me. The earth is worthy to inhabit."

Be the Change......inspiring

An honest portrayal of "good-bye"

again in thanks to the "Writer's Almamac"

Waving Goodbye

by Wesley McNair

Why, when we say goodbye
at the end of an evening, do we deny
we are saying it at all, as in We'll
be seeing you, or I'll call, or Stop in,
somebody's always at home? Meanwhile, our friends,
telling us the same things, go on disappearing
beyond the porch light into the space
which except for a moment here or there
is always between us, no matter what we do.
Waving goodbye, of course, is what happens
when the space gets too large
for words – a gesture so innocent
and lonely, it could make a person weep
for days. Think of the hundreds of unknown
voyagers in the old, fluttering newsreel
patting and stroking the growing distance
between their nameless ship and the port
they are leaving, as if to promise I'll always
remember, and just as urgently, Always
remember me. It is loneliness, too,
that makes the neighbor down the road lift
two fingers up from his steering wheel as he passes
day after day on his way to work in the hello
that turns into goodbye? What can our own raised
fingers to for him, locked in his masculine
purposes and speeding away inside the glass?
How can our waving wipe away the reflex
so deep in the woman next door to smile
and wave on her way into her house with the mail,
we'll never know if she is happy
or sad or lost? It can't. Yet in that moment
before she and all the others and we ourselves
turn back to our disparate lives, how
extraordinary it is that we make this small flag
with our hands to show the closeness we wish for
in spite of what pulls us apart again
and again: the porch light snapping off,
the car picking its way down the road through the dark.

"Waving Goodbye" by Wesley McNair from Lovers of the Lost: New & Selected Poems. © David R. Godine, 2010. Reprinted with permission

So many times, I have had this thought,how we try to soften the blow to each other in parting when we wave,say things like;see you;see you soon,keep in touch,I'll talk to you,etc. when most of the time we just mean to say good-bye as even if our "see yous"were truthful ,we mostly do not know what the future holds....

Fawn in Spring Pasture

The Fawn

There it was I saw what I shall never forget And never retrieve. Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to believe, He lay, yet there he lay, Asleep on the moss, his head on his polished cleft small ebony hooves, The child of the doe, the dappled child of the deer.

Surely his mother had never said, “Lie here Till I return,” so spotty and plain to see On the green moss lay he. His eyes had opened; he considered me.

I would have given more than I care to say To thrifty ears, might I have had him for my friend One moment only of that forest day:

Might I have had the acceptance, not the love Of those clear eyes; Might I have been for him in the bough above Or the root beneath his forest bed, A part of the forest, seen without surprise.

Was it alarm, or was it the wind of my fear lest he depart That jerked him to his jointy knees, And sent him crashing off, leaping and stumbling On his new legs, between the stems of the white trees?

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Today on the way home,this fawn waiting in a spring pasture

White Irises of Spring

Irises are my favorites,these are some wispy white delicate ones after an afternoon spring rain this Sunday.They reassure me that spring is indeed here. I like their flowing gracefulness, they are the ballerinas of the garden.

First Lilacs of Spring

On this day in 1922, writer E.B. White wrote to his mother from Columbus, Ohio. He and a friend were on a road trip to Seattle, and he was writing to congratulate his parents on their wedding anniversary. He said: "Spring has arrived in Ohio. This is a flat state where red pigs graze in bright green fields and where farms are neat and prosperous — not like New York farms. We roll along through dozens of villages and cities whose names we never heard. […] Sheep come drifting up long green lawns where poplars throw interminable shadows, come drifting up and stand like statues beneath white plum blossoms, while far down the land and off in the fields a little Ford tractor moves like a snail across the furrows. Lilacs are in full bloom and the lavender ironwood blossoms are coloring all the roads.
In this flat midwestern prarie state ,the soft fragrant lilacs are such a welcome site for me as well

Tray, the 3 legged dog does yoga

Three Legged Tray

Three legged Tray was out for the day

As content to skip on three

just as much as four

He arrived on this earth during birth

without his fourth paw,

Vet,said better for him

to get around with three

Tray knows not of a world of four

as for him three has served him well enough,

Three,well, is plenty good

His innocent ignorance,it gives him bliss, he has no pleading for other,no regrets

no if I had another leg ,another paw,then

dog paradise would be mine now ,on earth

Tray knows his paradise is

right now

on his three

just the way it is

I met Tray as I took a short walk yesterday, Tray was born without his fourth paw, so at birth the vet thought it would be easier to remove the fourth leg to get around, so he only knows how to live his life fully and content on his 3 legs. Tray has some consistant practice of a life well lived and appreciated. Dogs often get the simplest,deepest aspects of life so much more clearly than us.

Ashtanga yoga can make me smile sometimes

Today the last day of mysore with Lino Miele this time around in Chitown.I have heard from others that in addition to masterful skills in teaching ashtanga yoga,he has a well developed wry sense of humor,maybe even somewhat the trickster.I was towards the end of my practice on my back on my mat,about to go up into a backbend.Lino appeared,he said,get up ,jump thru.I was certain he was going to have me repeat a pose or two,as all week it seemed like I was repeating poses in new ways,experimenting with subtle nuances of entering,exiting and being in poses,a subtle ,but powerful metaphor of our life cycle.So,I waited for more instruction.He then said ,on your back,left leg,and then miraculously through sign language and his warm smile,I got it.oh ,I said in my mind and we both chuckled.He was giving me a new pose,just before I was starting my backbends.the instruction was more through his facilal expressiveness and smile.
There is always intrigue,excitement ,joy in the gift of a new pose,but this new pose seemed to be more to me about the gift of shared sweet laughter between teacher and student disguised in the physical mask of a new pose.
I will remember this gift so fondly...thank you ,lino for sharing this playful,joyous way of being.ashtsnga yoga can be fun,joyful and even exuberant sometimes.....


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Me ,is my home

Post Yoga Awarenesses today,
"Me" is my "home"

This is my home
where I live now.
This is the home that I come home to,
that comes with me.

This is the clay pot that contains
me,
It is the me where I
plant my gardens,
till my soil.
It is the home of my walkings
on wispy aired mountain tops,
low lush meadows.
It is where
the sun rises on me,sets upon my shoudler blades.
where the mouth of my spring river
swells.
where the skies blacken every night.

It is the one who knows me better than me
Me,lives
here,
in these loins ,in the belly of this cavernous marrow.

Me knows,my home is built on and of
borrowed time and earth.
Me takes comfort in this summer cottage in this evanscent summer of life.
Me,knows my home as all homes
is an imagining of what
my mind asked for and received.
Yet ,this is the only home I know of
now
the one
that I have built
and for this brief moment is
mine.

Yoga...listening to the singing of our body

This week,we are honored where I practice yoga to be taught in mysore every morning by the venerable ashtanga toga teacher,Lino Miele.The mysore room is infused with a sense of great solidity and grounding.There is a safe, contained aura that is shared amongst us.I am reading a book of collected poems by Philip Schulz this week. I came across this poem today. It reminded me of the experience of a grounded yoga practice, the feeling of moving deeply within myself , but at the same moment transcending to perceptions beyond the physical state of being more akin to the music of being...
Here is the poem,"The Music" by Philip Schultz

There is music in the spheres of the body.
I mean the pull of the sea in the blood
of the man alone on his porch watching
the stars wind bands of light around his body.
I mean the roll of the planet that is the rhythm
of his breath& the wilderness of his perception
that is the immensity of light flowering like stars
in the light of his eyes. I mean the singing in his body that is the world of the moment of his life.
Lord!

Sometimes on some days ,the practice of yoga, the teachings imparted to us showers us with gift of hearing the "singing of our body,the singing of the moments of our life"

Rose Petal Tea for Springtime

Friends are there to bring out the best in each other and help each other grow, My little friend,Stella made me warm "rose petal tea"with honey, very delicate and so sweet....

Teapot Museum, Conwy, North Wales; http://www.teapotworld.co.uk

When the world is all at odds
And the mind is all at sea
Then cease the useless tedium
And brew a cup of tea.
There is magic in its fragrance
There is solace in its taste
And then laden moments vanish
Somehow into space
And the world becomes a lovely thing
There's beauty as you'll see
All because you briefly stopped
To brew a cup of tea.

Of Tales and Ballads

According to legend, it was on this day in 1397 that Geoffrey Chaucer (books by this author) recited The Canterbury Tales to the court of Richard II. Although there is no evidence that this actually happened, it is easy to imagine the scene, in part because of a famous painting of Chaucer reciting his poetry to the court, painted in the early 15th century. The prologue of Canterbury Tales opens with the famous lines:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthein sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is one of the most famous examples of Middle English. Translated into modern English, it's something like:

When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
And specially from every shire's end
Of England they to Canterbury wend,
The holy blessed martyr there to see

This again from "the Writer's Almanac".I am in agreement with Chaucer,in that there is something intangible in the spring air that brings out a feeling of wanderlust. There is a lilt in one's step that the clean crisp air embues us with. It is a time for me that yearns for exploration, to hear tales spun and spin some of my own. It is almost as if the earth is asking us to contribute to the harmony of the awakening earth with our ballads,tales,poems,songs.I am finding anew that there is something unique in the mere act of walking outside that allows us to participate and create new stories and eagerly hear the tales we encounter.I wonder if you too feel that spring is the time where stories begin as we move out and greet the world and its inhabitants.

Tulips of Spring

from ,"A Contemplation Upon Flowers" byBobby J. Ward,1999

Tulips are bulbous perennials of the Lilaceae species.They are native to temperate regions of Central Asia.It is native to Turkey and was known as lale,but foreign travelers noted the flowers resemblance to a turban.Thus the common name for tulips is the latin translation of turban;tilbend.in the "Herbal Guide ofPlants",1633 it was written,"after the tulipia hathe beene some few daies floured,the points and brims of the flower turne backward, like a Dalmation or Turks cap,called Tulipan,Tolepan,Turban, Turfan,whereof it tooke his name"

In the language of flowers red tulip meant a declaration of love,yellow tulip declared hopeless love. The variegated or streaked tulip said,you have beautiful eyes.

I guess tulips are well versed in the lanuage of love,perhaps we can learn this language from them...

Knowledge like salt,deep,dark,clear

Poem: "At the Fishhouses," by Elizabeth Bishop from Complete Poems(Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

At the Fishhouses

Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,
is opaque, but the silver of the benches,
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered
among the wild jagged rocks,
is of an apparent translucence
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss
growing on their shoreward walls.
The big fish tubs are completely lined
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered
with creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.
Up on the little slope behind the houses,
set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,
is an ancient wooden capstan,
cracked, with two long bleached handles
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,
where the ironwork has rusted.
The old man accepts a Lucky Strike.
He was a friend of my grandfather.
We talk of the decline in the population
and of codfish and herring
while he waits for a herring boat to come in.
There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.
He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,
from unnumbered fish with that black old knife,
the blade of which is almost worn away.

Down at the water's edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals. . . One seal particularly
I have seen here evening after evening.
He was curious about me. He was interested in music;
like me a believer in total immersion,
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.
I also sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
He stood up in the water and regarded me
steadily, moving his head a little.
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug
as if it were against his better judgment.
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us,
the dignified tall firs begin.
Bluish, associating with their shadows,
a million Christmas trees stand
waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended
above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.
I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,
slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,
icily free above the stones,
above the stones and then the world.
If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

Knowledge depends on memory ,"dark,salt,clear moving,utterly free", what we know depends on how and what we remember ,it is colored by our experiences and how we feel at that time and how we feel now as we remember.Elizabeth Bishop brings me back to my own memories as a child along the sea,yes,"flowing and flown"

What we do with our freedom- a poem

I was inspired by Cecillia Woloch's poem, "APostcard to I . Kaminsky" so here is a powerful poem by Ilya Kaminsky reflecting a state of fleeing in the service of freedom

PRAISE

. . .but one day through the gate left half-open
there are yellow lemons shining at us
and in our empty breasts
these golden horns of sunlight
pour their songs.

-- Montale

Time, my twin, take me by hand
through the streets of your city;
my days, your pigeons, are fighting for crumbs -


*

A woman asks at night for a story with a happy ending.
I have none. A refugee,

I go home and become a ghost
searching the houses I lived in. They say -

the father of my father of his father of his father
was a prince
who married a Jewish girl

against the Church's will and his father's will and
the father of his father. Losing all,

eager to lose: the estate, ships,
hiding this ring (his wedding ring), a ring

my father handed to my brother, then took. Handed,
then took, hastily. In a family album

we sit like the mannequins of school-children

whose destruction,
like a lecture, is postponed.

Then my mother begins to dance, re-arranging
this dream. Her love

is difficult; loving her is simple as putting
raspberries
in my mouth.

On my brother's head: not a single
gray hair, he is singing to his twelve-month-old son.

And my father is singing
to his six-year-old silence.

This is how we live on earth, a flock of sparrows.
The darkness, a magician, finds quarters

behind our ears. We don't know what life is,
who makes it, the reality is thick

with longing. We put it up to our lips
and drink.


*


I believe in childhood, a native land of math exams
that return and do not return, I see -

the shore, the trees, a boy
running across the streets like a lost god;

the light falls, touching his shoulder.

Where memory, an old flautist,
plays in the rain and his dog sleeps, its tongue

half hanging out;
for twenty years between life and death

I have run through silence: in 1993 I came to America.


*


America! I put the word on a page, it is my keyhole.
I watch the streets, the shops, the bicyclist, the
oleanders,

two women strolling along the water front.
I open the windows of an apartment

and say: I had masters once, they roared above me,
Who are we? Why are we here?

the tales they told began with:
"mortality," "mercy."

A lantern they carried still glitters in my sleep,
confused ghosts who taught me living simply.

-- in this dream: my father breathes
as if lighting a lamp over and over. The memory

is starting its old engine, it begins to move
and I think the trees are moving.

I unmake these lines, dissolving in each vowel,
as Neruda said, my country

I change my blood in your direction. The evening
whispers
with its childlike, pulpy lips.

On the page's soiled corners
my teacher walks, composing a voice;

he rubs each word in his palms:
"hands learn from the soil and broken glass,

you cannot think a poem," he says,
"watch the light hardening into words."


*

I was born in the city named after Odysseus
and I praise no nation

but the provinces of human longing:
to the rhythm of snow

an immigrant's clumsy phrase
falls into speech.

But you asked
for a story with a happy ending. Your loneliness

played its lyre. I sat
on the floor, watching your lips.

Love, a one legged bird
I bought for forty cents as a child, and released;

is coming back, my soul in reckless feathers.
O the language of birds

with no word for complaint! -
the balconies, the wind.

This is how, while darkness
drew my profile with its little finger,

I have learned to see past as Montale saw it,
the obscure thoughts of God descending

among a child's drum beats,
over you, over me, over the lemon trees

"Praise" previously appeared in Salmagundi

© All Copyright, Ilya Kaminsky.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.

The bravery of Galileo

It was on this day in 1633 that Galileo Galilei (books by this author) stood trial before the Roman Inquisition, to defend the publication of his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632).

It is commonly thought that Galileo was called to defend his scientific beliefs before the Church, who insisted on their own version of the universe. But the purpose of the trial was more complex than that, going back 17 years, to a technicality that occurred the first time that Galileo was officially chastised by the Church. The question was whether he was ordered to stop publishing or teaching anything about a Copernican view of the universe, or whether he was told that he could present it as a theory but not the absolute truth.

And really, it started 90 years earlier, when the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543), laying out his revolutionary theory: that the earth and other celestial objects rotate around the sun, which is the fixed center of the universe. It was completely at odds with the accepted understanding — legitimized by the Church — that the Earth was at the center. There was a small stir, but Copernicus died at the same time he published his book, and his views were not particularly well publicized and sank into relative obscurity for decades.

But hearing those views from someone like Galileo was another story. Galileo was already famous, a respected scientist and lecturer, years before his involvement with any sort of controversial theory of the universe. After giving up the idea to become a monk, which his father opposed, he studied mathematics and medicine (his father's choice), but was more interested in math. He was one of the first scientists to show that math could be used to explain the laws of nature, and he used that understanding to conduct breakthrough experiments, including his work on accelerating objects. The story that he dropped cannon balls out of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is probably apocryphal, but he did show that falling objects accelerate at a uniform rate, and that this is true regardless of their weight.

At some point Galileo did become interested in the theory of the universe expressed by Copernicus, and then he discovered something that he thought would prove the theory beyond question: the telescope. A Dutch eyeglass maker is credited with inventing it in 1608, and as soon as he heard about it, Galileo set one up himself, and became the first person to use it to observe the sky. He deduced that the moon was illuminated by a reflection of the sun on the Earth, he saw that Jupiter was orbited by moons, and he studied Venus and realized that the only explanation for its changing phases was that it orbited the sun. He thought that, finally, no one could disagree that the planets orbited the sun, so he started talking openly about his ideas. He wrote and lectured for the educated public, figuring that they were a more receptive audience than scholars.

But of course people did disagree: The Church claimed it was at odds with the Bible, particularly a verse in the Book of Joshua that describes God stopping the sun in the sky, and one in Psalms that says Earth was put on its foundations and would not move. Galileo responded publicly by explaining that the truth of the Bible was not always literal, that it used metaphorical imagery. He wrote: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations."

And on this day of April in 1533, Galileo was called before the Inquisition to be questioned. They did not give him a chance to defend his view of the universe, nor in fact did they argue with his beliefs at all. Instead, their argument centered on the first time Galileo had been officially reprimanded, 17 years earlier. Galileo was interrogated by the full Inquisition again on April 30th, and he offered to write a sequel in which he argued against Copernicusm. This was not good enough. Weeks later, on June 16th, the pope decreed: "Galileo being interrogated on his intention, even with the threat of torture ... he is to abjure in a plenary session of the Congregation of the Holy Office, then is to be condemned to imprisonment at the pleasure of the Holy Congregation, and ordered not to treat further, in whatever manner, either in words or in writing, on the mobility of the Earth and the stability of the Sun; otherwise he will incur the penalties of relapse. The book entitled Dialogue of Galileo Galilei the Lincean is to be prohibited."

Eventually, he was allowed to return home under house arrest, where he became blind a few years later, and died in 1642. In 1718, the Church lifted its ban on Galileo's work, with the exception of theDialogues, which was banned until 1822.

This is from the Writer's Almanac. I have always been impressed by Galileo's bravery,speaking one's truth which is often against the grain, preserving democracy , morality and the advancement of humanity.He wrote: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations."I admire and honor such courage.

Thoughts on ;when it is time to leave

Postcard to I. Kaminsky from a Dream at the Edge of the Sea
by Cecilia Woloch

I was leaving a country of rain for a country of apples. I hadn't much time. I told my beloved to wear his bathrobe, his cowboy boots, a black patch like a pirate might wear over his sharpest eye. My own bags were full of salt, which made them shifty, hard to lift. Houses had fallen, face first, into the mud at the edge of the sea. Hurry, I thought, and my hands were like birds. They could hold nothing. A feathery breeze. Then a white tree blossomed over the bed, all white blossoms, a painted tree. "Oh," I said, or my love said to me. We want to be human, always, again, so we knelt like children at prayer while our lost mothers hushed us. A halo of bees. I was dreaming as hard as I could dream. It was fast—how the apples fattened and fell. The country that rose up to meet me was steep as a mirror; the gold hook

from "poem a day".I often think if I had to leave quickly,run for my life, where, how ,with what,with who shall I run...

the poet easily brings me back to these thoughts,do you ever have such thoughts as well?

A Poem for "the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust"

A Song on the End of the World

BY CZESLAW MILOSZ

On the day the world ends

A bee circles a clover,

A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

By the rainspout young sparrows are playing

And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends

Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,

A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,

Vegetable peddlers shout in the street

And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

The voice of a violin lasts in the air

And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder

Are disappointed.

And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps

Do not believe it is happening now.

As long as the sun and the moon are above,

As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,

As long as rosy infants are born

No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,

Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:

There will be no other end of the world,

There will be no other end of the world.

Warsaw, 1944

Czeslaw Milosz ranks among the most respected figures in twentieth-century Polish literature, as well as one of the most respected contemporary poets in the world, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. He was born in Lithuania, where his parents moved temporarily to escape the political upheaval in their native Poland. As an adult, he left Poland due to the oppressive Communist regime that came to power following World War II and has lived in the United States since 1960. Milosz's poems, novels, essays, and other works are written in his native Polish and translated by the author and others into English. Having lived under the two great totalitarian systems of modern history, national socialism and communism, Milosz writes of the past in a tragic, ironic style that nonetheless affirms the value of human life. While the faith of his Roman Catholic upbringing has been severely tested, it has remained intact. Terrence Des Pres, writing in the Nation, stated that "political catastrophe has defined the nature of our . . . [age], and the result—the collision of personal and public realms—has produced a new kind of writer. Czeslaw Milosz is the perfect example. In exile from a world which no longer exists, a witness to the Nazi devastation of Poland and the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, Milosz deals in his poetry with the central issues of our time: the impact of history upon moral being, the search for ways to survive spiritual ruin in a ruined world

TRANSLATED BY ANTHONY MILOSZ

Spring Buds

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,

And went on in sunlight

from, "the Wasteland" By TS Elliot

On this crisp ,cool April day;

Spring Buds,by me

What can i tell you

about the buds of springtime,

that they are stalwart,courageous,determined,

firm,persist ant,lionhearted,obstinate

resolute,spirited,

that they are hearty,hardy, bendable,crisp,

resilient,snappable,crackable,defiant,

that they are pliable,willowy

pliant,supple.

Birth,

Shall i say;

oracular,premonitory ,preparation for;

twisting,turning,living,breathing,breeding

growing,giving,receiving

surviving.

A bud forms at the tip

of a branch,

It must;snap,retract,recoil,emerge,whittle

forge forth

April of forty four degrees, thirty two degrees,

seventy two degrees,eighty degrees,

April of sun,rain,sleet,snow,hail

sun

April of endurance,abeyance,exuberance

patience,hope.

If not for April

summer could not follow.

"Lostness"

Lost by Stephen Dobyns A cry was heard among the trees, not a man's, something deeper. The forest extended up one side the mountain and down the other. None wanted to ask what had made the cry. A bird, one wanted to say, although he knew it wasn't a bird. The sun climbed to the mountaintop, and slid back down the other side. The black treetops against the sky were like teeth on a saw. They waited for it to come a second time. It's lost, one said. Each thought of being lost and all the years that stretched behind. Where had wrong turns been made? Soon the cry came again. Closer no This was the poem for "Poem a Day " in my email today."Each thought of being lost and all the years that stretched behind".This poem reminded me of the dialogue between the man and the boy in Cormac Mc Carthy's book, "the Road". Being lost can be frightening,magnifies a state of aloneness and longings for what we had and may not have cherished or cared for enough.. Sometimes getting or being lost just happens out of nowhere with no design,no planning,but sometimes we are active partners in that state of "being lost or losing'. For me ,those are the hardest ones as by our design we cause undue self suffering....

"a phone moment"

again from "the Writer's Almanac"

On the Phone

by Michael Milburn

That whooshing, watery,
radio-being-tuned sound
tells me he's outdoors
on his way somewhere
and I'd better talk fast.
I can't remember
the last time I phoned him
without dreading that countdown
to when he says, "I'm going
into the subway, Dad, got to go."
Lately, he even calls me from the street—
a convenient way to keep
his keeping in touch short. He's right—
I'd talk to him for an hour,
marching through my pent-up questions.
It tires me, wanting him so much,
the resistance with which he responds.
I bet there's a girl out there
he'd duck into a lobby
to keep speaking to
as long as she desired. Instead,
he tells me that I'm breaking up,
and there's a sound
as if he's dropped the phone
into a rushing river, which then
pulls him in too, his life.

"On the Phone" by Michael Milburn, from Drive By Heart. © Word Press, 2009. Reprinted with permission

how many times do we place our phones in a position as a means of distance rather than inter-connectedness,i know i am the recipient or the creator of such "phone moments"

Thanks to the poet for crystalizing a moment in words that can be so true about who we can be sometimes and how elude each other....

April ......babbling and strewing flowers

.Spring by Edna St. Vincent Millay To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death But what does that signify? Not only under the ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots.Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers

Colors of Spring

The earth awakens in a cloak of vibrant colors;

aurulent-gold colored

albicant-whitish,becoming white

citreous-lemom colored,lemony

citrine-dark greenish yellow

eau-di-nil-pale green color

flavescent-yellowish, turning yellow

goldenrod-dark golden yellow

hyacinthine-of blue-purple

ianthine-of violet color

jessamy-yellow like a jasmine

luteolus-yellowish

luteous-golden yellow

lutescent-yellowish

meline-canary yellow

porraceous-leek geen

tilleul-yellowish green

violaceous-violet colored

virescent-becoming green

virid-green

vitellary-bright yellow

willowish-of the color of willow leaves

chloranthus-green flowered

estriatus-beautiful green color

galbinus-yellowish green

laetesvirens-bright vivid green

springtime.......

Every time you have a spiritual experience you return a different person, from Tim Feldman & Kino Mac Gregor

I have been in yoga zone for many a day lately.I am slowly returning to the rhythm of my daily life. I had the fortunate experience of being taught for a week with Tim Feldman and Kino Mac Gregor in the "old shala style" tradition of ashtanga yoga. I have learned much and expanded my mind , breath and asana practice. Although ,much of the teachings are often about the physical nature of yoga and breathing, what is so unique about Kino and Tim is their dedication to teaching "the human being, the everlasting soul of who we are. They impart wisdom,knowledge,experience,kindness,compassion and generosity. They model the tradition of yoga to be practiced in all aspects of our life,not only on the mat.Here are some words from Tim and Kino that I carry with me now;

- First,train the mind to pause,

-Cultivate an attitude of friendliness to those who have attained the results we want.

-Cultivate an attitude of compassion,"karuna" to the suffering

-Cultivate an attitude of disregard to evil and those who create suffering

-Maintain peacefulness in your life regardless of the experience in your life

-Only someone who has experienced the dark places can truly teach

-Knowledge that you know is true no one can talk you out of

In gratitude to Tim and Kino and those who shared their practice,energy and breath with me,Om Shanti