Walk Softly Live Gently

A small bite of it

brings pleasure to my senses

fruit of the harvest

_____________________

It came in a bag

a small twig with spidery roots

a glimmer of hope

_____________________

My sole Ginkgo tree

three foot tall survivor

now shedding its leaves

Found this one here at ‘Ineffable Bliss

This flame of living Truth…
Movement without division,
Action free of doubt,
Thought without thinking,
Wisdom born of the unknown …

This endless benediction,
Birthing itself from the origin of all,
Never leaving or forsaking itself…
Timelessly present always
Shamelessly displaying itself as This,
right here…
Never leaving any trace behind.

Adyashanti

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In order to be effective truth

must penetrate like an arrow

- and that is likely to hurt.

‘Posthumous Pieces’

by Wei Wu Wei

What we appear to be

is a fleeting shadow,

a distorted and fragmentary

reflection of what we all are

when we no longer assume

that we are that phenomenal

appearance.

“The Tenth Man”

by Wei Wu Wei

“Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners, schedules, beepers.

Chronos is time at her worst. Chronos keeps track. …Chronos is the world’s time.

Kairos is transcendence, infinity, reverence, joy, passion, love, the Sacred.

Kairos is intimacy with the Real. Kairos is time at her best. …Kairos is Spirit’s time.

We exist in chronos.

We long for kairos.

That’s our duality.

Chronos requires speed so that it won’t be wasted.

Kairos requires space so that it might be savored.

We do in chronos.

In kairos we’re allowed to be …

It takes only a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment.

All that kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

I resurected another oldie for this prompt from Writers Island since I thought it fit well.

It was not the time of morning
for chasing dreams
like slippery fish tails
or shunning the shadow of her,
forever enshrined in perfection.

The wheels crackle over gravel
as she pulls away and
Summer lulls into Autumn
like a libretto dimming.

Though it is the morning
of the evening
of perhaps Armageddon,
I still bother
to straighten the sheets,
fluff the impression of her head
from the pillow,
and mask the mystery of our night
under the soft comfort
of quilted down.

© RonRusso 2007

This weeks One Deep Breath haiku prompt is ‘closeness’. My response:

There is that place

where no boundaries exist

Lion and Lamb are one

You are the center

of the Earth and as hot

how can you escape?

Love made

wet skin on skin

felt closeness

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When you give a shilling to a beggar - do you realize that you are giving it to yourself? When you help a lame dog over a stile - do you realize that you yourself are being helped? When you kick a man when he is down - do you realize that you are kicking yourself? Give him another kick - if you deserve it! -

“Why Lazurus Laughed”

by Wei Wu Wei

This weeks prompt at One Deep Breath is ‘balance’

Rock

Paper

Scissors

Stone on stone

Mind and heart

Heart wins

You are the earth

You are the sky

Yes, you are

Coleman Barks

Song of the Swordsmith

There is a swordsmith
in a valley in eastern Afghanistan.

When there is no war, he forges
steel plows, and he shoes horses,
but he is most known for his singing.

People come from all over to listen to him,
from the forests of the giant walnut trees,
from Qataghan and Badakshan,
from the snowbound Hindu Kush,
from Khanabad and Kunat,
from Herat and Paghman.

Mostly they come to hear one song
about the far valley of paradise.

This particular song has a haunting lilt
and the ability to make those who hear
feel that they are in that place,
the paradisal valley.

Someone always asks when he finishes,
Is that a real place?

It is as real as real can be,
is always his answer.

Have you been there?

Not in the ordinary way of traveling.

The singer loves Aisha,
a young woman in the valley.

But she doubts that there is
such a place as the one he sings of,
and so does his rival for her love,
Hasan, a swordsman of great strength
and agility. He has full confidence
that he will eventually win Aisha.

He makes fun of the swordsmith-singer
whenever he can. One day the villagers
are sitting inside the blessed quiet
that happens after that song.

Hasan says, Why don’t you follow
the blue haze that rises there
from the mountains of Sangan,
and actually go to the place you sing about?

I feel it would not be right.

Well, that is a convenient feeling.
It keeps you from being revealed
as a fraud and a sentimental dreamer.

I propose a test to decide
several things at once.

You love Aisha,
but she does not believe
in your valley.

You two could never be married
in such a discord of trust.

The swordsmith replies,
You expect me then
to set out for the valley and return
with proof of its existence?

Yes! Call out Hasan
and the crowd together.

I will make this trip then,
but will Aisha promise to marry me
if I return successfully?

I will, says Aisha quietly.

He collects dried mulberries
and scraps of bread in a sack
and starts on the journey.

His way is always up. He climbs
until he comes to a sheer wall
blocking the way. He scales that,
and there is another, another,
five walls in all.

On the other side of the last wall
he finds himself in a valley
like his own.

People come out of their houses
to welcome him.

It is so weirdly strange, this experience
of the swordsmith-singer.

Months later he walks back into
the valley he started out from,
an old man limping to his hut.

Word spreads that he has returned.
Hasan is spokesman for the crowd that comes.
He calls the singer to the window.

They gasp at how old he has become.

Did you find the valley?

I did.

What was it like?
He is quiet for a while
in the weariness and confusion,
in the difficulty of saying
where he went, where he is now,
and what has happened.

I climbed until it seemed like
no human habitation could be so high.
But there was, a valley identical to this one.

And the people there are not only like
us, they are us. Hasan, Aisha, myself,
you, you, everyone is there
in his or her original form.

We are the shadowy copies.

Everyone turns and walks away,
convinced that the singer has gone mad
in his solitary search.

Aisha marries Hasan.
The singer rapidly grows old and dies.

The people who heard the story
as he told it also soon grow old.
They lose interest in their lives.

They feel some huge event is about to occur,
one they have no control over.
Vital energy drains away.

Once in a thousand years
such a secret is revealed
to someone like the singer-swordsmith.

But no one yet
has quite been able to take in
the truth that we are two selves,
this one and one more real
that lives in the valley
a certain song make us long for.

That we are that being
as well as this more familiar one,
who is dubious, confused, reckless, and sad,
whose sadness is a little solved
when we hear the song
that makes us remember essence.

A friend says,
There is another world,
and this is it.

That the two valleys are one
living being
cannot be said in language.

That we already are the perfected one
cannot be spoken of.

But it can be felt inside,
as the moment itself,

and as the whole outdoors,
the whole-around-us,
that veiny animule.

That is the heart,
where we take our walks.
By Coleman Barks

(”Song of the Swordsmith” is part of a longer poem, “Central Asian Sufis and the Nature of the Heart,” which appears in Coleman Barks’s Scrapwood Man (Maypop Books).

As long as there is a ‘you’ doing or not-doing, thinking or not-thinking, ‘meditating’ or ‘not-meditating’ you are no closer to home than the day you were born.

“The Tenth Man” by Wei Wu Wei

For this weeks haiku prompt “Simple Pleasures) at One Deep Breath Poetry

Downs knows no bounds
When he smiles that broad smile
I melt in pleasure

Brody runs, grabs, hugs
Paw Paw, full lips offered
purest simplest pleasure

This weeks prompt is “Renewal” on Writers Island

all moments are new
all moments are sacred
in their newness

clean, pure, radiant
in anticipation
of newbirth

every particle or wave
is a possibility
of complete

renewal

lift wet stone from creek
wet bare feet, soaked blue jeans
crayfish* between toes

for One Deep Breath poetry

*Crayfish (Northeast, Great Lakes)

Crawdad (Southeast, Midwest, Plains)

Crawfish (All over U.S.)

This one from the archives is for the Writers Island prompt “The Journey”.

The Arches

That day we floated
down the brownish river
in a makeshift ship,
a construction site derelict
stolen in the half light of dusk,

we were maybe twelve
in wet blue jeans
and tee shirts rolled
at the sleeves according to custom
in those placid fifties.

The tainted shallow water
was no hindrance
that warm August day; to us
it was just cool
in the heat.

The tall dark bridge seen
through the downstream haze
looked imposing from where we
sat. Its high shadowed arches
rising ominously to the clouds.

Our progress slowed in the shallows
by dragging the old mortar box
over the mud and rocks,
stopping occasionally
to chase the Crayfish

from their hiding places
that summer on the river
called “Bronx”
looking ahead to that bridge
fearing to go under it

lest some strange thing
come from the shadows
of its tall arches
looming ahead, so close now
portending doom.

Yet we push on slowly,
determined to make memories
of our young fear not realizing
we would never make it
that far.

© RonRusso 2007