The summer river:
although there is a bridge, my horse
goes through the water.

-Shiki Masaoka

“When your soul and mine
have left our bodies and we are
buried alongside each other,
a potter may one day mold
the dust of both of us
into the same clay.”

-Omar Khayyam, from “Quatrains”

No man is an island,
entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were.
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s
or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

-John Donne, from “Meditation 17”

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about...

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

-Pablo Neruda, “Keeping Quiet”

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate,
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

-Claude McKay, “America”

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

-Rumi

O lonely heart so timid of approach,
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?

Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
Against the daggers of my warring mind.

There is no part of the unyielding earth,
Even bare rocks where the eagles build their nest,
Will give us undisturbed and friendly rest.
No dewfall softens this vast belt of dearth.

But in the socket-chiseled teeth of strife,
That gleam in serried files in all the lands,
We may join hungry, understanding hands,
And drink our share of ardent love and life.

-Claude McKay, “Courage”

Now the soft
eggs of the salamander
in their wrappings of jelly
begin to shiver.

They’re tired of sleep.
They have a new idea.
They want to swim away
into the world.

-Mary Oliver, “What is it?”

Looking at the
world’s sorry state
do not whimper helplessly!
With the wrath of the gods
let us bravely head on!

Keep in mind that
life and death are
right before your eyes;
You may want to retreat
but the enemy will not allow it.

-Ueshiba Morihei O-Sensei, “Doka #56 & #57”

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”

The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies:
This is the matter; this is the work.

-Virgil, “the Aeneid” Book 6

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost, from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

Like vanishing dew,
a passing apparition
or the sudden flash
of lightning—already gone—
thus should one regard one’s self.

-Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley, “Invictus”

As I wend to the shores I know not,

As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck’d,

As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,

As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,

I too but signify at the utmost a little wash’d-up drift,

A few sands and dead leaves to gather,

Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.

-Walt Whitman, “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life”

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don’t swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can
never
categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.

-Charles Bukowski, “No Leaders Please”

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

-Philip Larkin, “Days”

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

-W.H Auden, “If I Could Tell You”

There is health in thy gray wing,
Health of nature’s furnishing.
Say, thou modern-winged antique,
Was thy mistress ever sick?
In each heaving of thy wing
Thou dost health and leisure bring,
Thou dost waive disease and pain
And resume new life again.

-Henry David Thoreau, “To a Marsh Hawk in Spring”

nothing has happened

for days i have been sitting

with the paper in front of me

but nothing happens

i am like a child that

is fed on sorrow

i lift my arm

but can write nothing

i am like a bird that

has forgotten its peers

open my beak

but can sing nothing

it feels so strange

shameless to think

of death when none of those

one knows has died

it means that each time

one looks oneself in the mirror

one looks death in the eye

without crying

as if it was a clear

completely intelligible answer

but to questions

one does not dare ask

a human child

give us room to love

a mortal form

of immortality

like the depths lift the water

up to a source

death lifts the living

up to drink

-Inger Christensen, from “poem about death”