Poems

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Azure Creek -Wang Wei

To reach Yellow-Bloom River, they say,
you’d best follow Azure Creek through

these mountains, its hundred-mile way
taking ten thousand twists and turns,

first rock-strewn, kicking up a racket,
then its color serene deep among pines,

rapids tumbling water-chestnuts here,
crystalline purity lighting reeds there.

My mind’s perennial form is idleness,
and the same calm fills a river’s clarity,

so I’ll just linger here on this flat stone,
dandle my fishing line—and stay, stay.

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Psalm 139, vs 7-11

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither 
shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend to heaven, thou art there: if I make
my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell
in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Even there shalt thy hand lead me, and thy
right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;
even the night shall be light about me.

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Francis of Assisi

God came to my house and asked for charity.
And I fell on my knees and
Cried, “Beloved, what may I give?”
“Just love,” He said. “Just love.”

Such love does the sky now pour,
That whenever I stand in a field,
I have to wring out the light
When I get home.

No one knows his name—
A man who lives on the streets
And walks around in rags.

Once I saw that man in a dream.
He and God were constructing
An extraordinary temple.

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Rumi

I like when the music happens like this:
Something in His eye grabs hold of 
A tambourine in me,
Then I turn and lift a violin in someone else,
And they turn, and this turning continues;
It has reached you now.
Isn’t that something?

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When I Met My Muse  -Wm. Stafford

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off—they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased.

Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched.

“I am your own
way of looking at things,” she said.

“When you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation.”

And I took her hand.

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