O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, Verne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is, and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
— W.B. Yeats
One evening in winter
when nothing has been enough,
when the days are too short,
the nights too long
and cheerless, the secret
and docile buds of the apple
blossoms begin their quick
ascent to light. Night
after interminable night
the sugars pucker and swell
into green slips, green
silks. And just as you find
yourself at the end
of winter’s long, cold
rope, the blossoms open
like pink thimbles
and that black dollop
of shine called
bumblebee stumbles in.
— Susan Kelly-Dewitt
If we watch the trail
And listen to the trees;
Squirrels chatter
In ancient languages,
A moon can rise
From behind a flower,
You will capture
The wind with your hair,
The sun with your eyes,
And balance your burden
So it is light.
— J. W. Rivers
Upon the hard crest of a snow-drift
We tread, and grown quiet, we walk
On towards my house, white, enchanted;
Our mood is too tender for talk.
— ANNA AKHMATOVA
天涯也有江南信,
梅破知春近。
夜阑风细得香迟,
不道晓来开遍、向南枝。
– 黄庭坚《虞美人·宜州見梅作》
Even at the edge of the world, whispers of Jiangnan unfold,
Plum blossoms burst, proclaiming spring’s approach.
Late in the night, their fragrance drifts on a tender breeze.
Unaware that by dawn, blooms full on south-facing branches.
— Huang Tingjian (1045-1105)
I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.
Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.
— Mary Oliver
time has acquired a stillness,
the hour breathes
over a wine jug,
it’s late, the last blows have been traded,
a clinch and a hang on the ropes
before the bell—I give the world
to anyone who wants it, let them be happy:
— Gottfried Benn
O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our soul’s as free
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
— George Gordon Byron (1788–1824)
Everyone in the room is cheering.
This is what you do for a painting you love!
We climb up on one another’s shoulders,
wave pom-poms that match the palette.
— Rebecca Morgan Frank
A green level of lily leaves
Roofs the pond’s chamber and paves
The flies’ furious arena: study
These, the two minds of this lady.
— Ted Hughes
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