after bathing, perhaps

            

 

 

 

 

 

                      Purity

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing solitude.
Only me and my cigarette,
and this tiny dragonfly
painted in Moldavian monastery blue.

 

Nothing threatens me,
not even the sun.
The sky is an immense cloud
made of mother-of-pearl.

The lake is an immense cloud
made of mother-of-pearl.
I am the mermaid of the lake.
– I am an infinite melody
like the murmur of the rain.  

 

And I am clean,
like the poem I’m writing.

 

 

 

 

                      Nina Cassian      +April 2014

                           Romanian poet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

....

The Peace Of Wild Things

 

 

 

 

 

 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                    Wendell Berry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.........

a way of great success

              





                 The Donkey






When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.




                  G. K. Chesterton









......