Feelings and Emotions

---- a lovely poem by the Vietnamese poet Xuan Dieu ----

To be a poet is to hum with winds,
to ride the moon and dream, to roam with clouds,
to have one’s soul involved in myriad ties
and share one’s heart among a hundred loves.

Here is home where all the world may lodge,
a vase that gathers minds of every hue,
a garden birds will sow with every seed,
where honey flowers jostle poison fruits.

His eyes, two wells, contain the skies above;
his ears erect no barrier , stop no sound:
he can perceive each whisper out of space
and of the blue can catch the faintest hint.

With hand on breast, he feels the tide of blood
and tears for all men’s hearts within one heart.
He penetrate the murmur of a brook,
birdcalls, the howl of storms, a sunbeam’s cheer.

Born wingless, he takes off and roams the sky;
walking on earth, he visits heaven’s heights.
His minute can enfold a thousand years;
he sees all nature in one blade of grass.

I am just a little pin- a million things
are all a million magnets drawing me.
Night scents, entrancing, rise with the full moon-
why blame the poet for his throes of love?

- Xuan Dieu

Astonishing the Gods

----- excerpt from Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri -----

And as he breathed deeply the changing colours of the air, he noticed that the glow that was his guide seemed to be floating.

"What is the first law of this place?" he asked his floating guide.

"The first law of our city", the guide said, with that almost ironic smile in the voice. "is that what you think is what becomes real."

He pondered this as he walked past fountains and alongside the fields of dancing colours that he had already passed before.

"Does that mean if I think I have passed the same place twice it too becomes real?"

"Yes."

"But what if I pass it twice before I think it?"

"That means you are not aware of it the first time. Anything you are not aware of you have to experience again."

"Why?"

"Because if you aren't aware of it, you didn't pass it. You didn't experience it."

"But what if I am aware of the second time?"

"Then you experienced it once. The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time."

"Why is this so?"

"It is one of the foundations of our civilisation. At the beginning of our history there was great suffering. Our sages learnt that we tend to repeat our suffering if we have not learnt fully all that can be learnt from it. And so we had to experience our suffering completely while it happened so it would be so deeply lodged in our memory and in our desire for a higher life that we would never want to experience the suffering again, in any form. Hence the law. Anyone wo sleeps through their experiences would have to undergo them for as many times as it takes to wake them up and make them feel the uniqueness or the horror of their experiences for the first time. This law is the basis of our civilisation, a permanent sense of wonder at the stillness of time."

"Is time still?"

"Does time move?"

"Yes."

"Where to?"

"I don't know."

"Have you seen it move?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"On a sundial."

"That is a measurement of a motion. Time itself is invisible. It is not a river. While you are in time all time is still. As in a painting."

"But day turns into night."

"Yes."

"So times moves."

"No. The planet moves. Time is still."

"I don't understand."

"That's because you move your mind too much."

"What then is the second law of this place?"

"When you need to know it you will find out."

"You are a difficult guide."

"Wait till you meet the others."

With this remark the guide fell silent again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Strength Song

------ Powerful yet tender, another gem by Attila Jozsef -------

I toss spring over my shoulder
and feed it to my heart
I bear the yoke of my defiant age.
I groan but my knees refuse to bend.
I hoard the flaming dragon of my rages,
the tongue that wrings the page’s sorrows
Pyramid worlds crumble under my feet,
I stagger the heavens. The sun crowns my head.
Worlds of pain drain from my clenched fist
Nothing, but nothing brings me to my knees
but my mother’s grave overgrown with weeds

-Attila Jozsef

I wait for You

--- an amazing poem by the poet Attila Jozsef -----

I wait for you
There’s dew on the rough grass
Sprawling branches wait for you
With open arms

I am cold. The leaves are wet
And shiver at night.

Should you come, they would quiet.
And there would be great silence.
We would listen only to our hearts,
Feel only the sweetness of our lips.
Nothing else would matter

Our skins would burn
Red and infinite
And our souls melt
Into the dawn’s scented altar

-Attila Jozsef

The incredible lightness of being ...

The incredible lightness of being
without fear.

The incredible lightness of being
without desire.

The incredible lightness of being
my true self.

The incredible lightness of being
in God.

Beguilement

Between my body’s great desire to live
and my soul’s implacable will to be free,
I am caught, like a moth enthralled by the flame,
circles it in hypnotised flight.

Weighed down by the world and its ways,
my soul ever ready to take flight, waits.
While remembered glimpses of freedom
beguile, tantalise, but out of reach…

Whales

----- the latest from Tia's creative pen -----

Whales are creatures that live in the sea
They have feelings and moods
Just like you and just like me

They are beautiful animals
that should not be left out
they have tails and wonders with a water spout

So you see that these whales are important to me
in the ocean they live from Antarctica to Greece
we should just let them live in peace.

The flaming moth

My soul afire
at Your touch,
all else turned to ashes
at Your feet.

This flaming moth
this luminous soul,
resplendently caught
in the flame of Your candle.

Freed of bondage
light with bliss.
Only You and I
and ecstasy.