And why not be flagrantly happy, really. The moon is full and rakish and spring keeps teasing the morning into taking off its sweater. By noon, everyone is blushing. In the garden, strawberries come up on their own, their fearless white flowers pre-wired for sweetness. Who cares the weeds are already releasing their onslaught of…
One morning we will wake up and forget to build that wall we’ve been building, the one between us the one we’ve been building for years, perhaps out of some sense of right and boundary, perhaps out of habit. One morning we will wake up and let our empty hands hang empty at our…
Who turns this into that? Sound into noise? Aroma into odor? Taste into pleasure or disgust? Who turns yes into no? Grace into disgrace? Who turns the present into the past? Who turns the now into the not-now? As-it-is into as-it-should-be? Silence into restlessness? Stillness into boredom? The ordinary into the menial? Who turns pain…
It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear. She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains, the long winding road crossing forests and villages. And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter there seems nothing more than…
Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvelous error!— that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures. by Antonio Machado This is a part of the longer poem by Antonio Machado, who is seen by many as one…
In all ten directions of the universe, there is only one truth. When we see clearly, the great teachings are the same. What can ever be lost? What can be obtained? If we attain something, it was there from the beginning of time. If we lost something, it is hiding somewhere near us. Look: this…
After Derek Mahon Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array; the…
Yes there is fear. Yes there is isolation. Yes there is panic buying. Yes there is sickness. Yes there is even death. But, They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise You can hear the birds again. They say that after just a few weeks of quiet The sky is no longer…
We plant seeds in the ground And dreams in the sky, Hoping that, someday, the roots of one Will meet the upstretched limbs of the other. It has not happened yet. We share the sky, all of us, the whole world: Together, we are a tribe of eyes that look upward, Even as we stand…