Dream Work

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know, whoever I was, I was alive for a little while.

Landscape Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that they have no tongues, could lecture all day if they wanted about spiritual patience? Isn't it clear the black oaks along the path are standing as though they were the most fragile of flowers? Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead. Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now the crows break off from the rest of the darkness and burst up into the sky—as though all night they had thought of what they would like their lives to be, and imagined their strong, thick wings.

Wild Geese" You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever from, One or Two Things

Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning in the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter. Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite, the oceanic fluids; it needs the body’s world, instinct and imagination and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility, to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is – so it enters us – in the morning shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning; and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star.

For years and years I struggled just to love my life. And then the butterfly rose, weightless, in the wind. "Don't love you life too much," it said, and vanished into the world.

and anyway it’s just the same old story -- a few people just trying, one way or another, to survive. Mostly, I want to be kind. And nobody, of course, is kind, or mean, for a simple reason. And nobody gets out of it, having to swim through the fires to stay in this world.

I believed in the world. Oh, I wanted to be easy in the peopled kingdoms, to take my place there, but there was none that I could find shaped like me.

what I wanted was to be willing to be afraid

Whatever power of the earth rampages, we turn to it dazed but anonymous eyes; whatever the name of the catastrophe, it is never          the opposite of love.

You can die for it - an idea, or the world. People have done so, brilliantly, letting their small bodies be bound to the stake, creating an unforgettable fury of light. But this morning, climbing the familiar hills in the familiar fabric of dawn, I thought of China and India and Europe, and I thought how the sun blazes for everyone just so joyfully as it rises under the lashes of my own eyes, and I thought I am so many! What is my name? What is the name of the deep breath I would take over and over for all of us? Call it whatever you want, it is happiness, it is another one of the ways to enter fire.

What good does it do to lie all day in the sun loving what's easy? It never grew easy, but at least I grew peaceful:

And probably, if they don’t waste time looking for an easier world, they can do it.

Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors to my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.

How does any of us live in this world? One thing compensates for another, I suppose. Sometimes what’s wrong does not hurt at all, but rather shines like a new moon.

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

I began to pick through the red rivers of confusion; I began to take apart the deep stitches of nightmares.

I forgive them their unhappiness, I forgive them for walking out of the world. But I don’t forgive them for turning their faces away, for taking off their veils and dancing for death — for hurtling toward oblivion on the sharp blades of their exquisite poems, saying: this is the way.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more.

I wanted to live my life but I didn’t want to do what I had to do to go on,

the dark heart of the story that is all the reason for its telling?

we are all one family but love ourselves best.

You don’t want to hear the story of my life, and anyway I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

I know death is the fascinating snake under the leaves, sliding and sliding; I know the heart loves him too, can’t turn away, can’t break the spell. Everything wants to enter the slow thickness, aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost. Wants to be stone.

whatever the name of the catastrophe, it is never the opposite of love.

and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do — determined to save the only life you could save.

Did I actually reach out my arms toward it, toward paradise falling, like the fading of the dearest, wildest hope- the dark heart of the story that is all the reason for its telling?

I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know, whoever I was, I was alive for a little while. [...] And probably, if they don’t waste time looking for an easier world, they can do it.