Kerry Hardie “Sheep Fair Day”

From The Missouri Review:
The Missouri Review, Kerry Hardie, “Sheep Fair Day”

Kerry Hardie, “Sheep Fair Day”

The poem continues:
and God felt how it is when I stand too long,
how the sickness rises, how the muscles burn.

Later, at the back end of the afternoon,
I went down to swim in the green slide of river,
I worked my way under the bridge, against the current,
then I showed how it is to turn onto your back
with above you and a long way up, two gossiping pigeons,
and a clump of valerian, holding itself to the sky.
I remarked on the stone arch as I drifted through it,
how it dapples with sunlight from the water,
how the bridge hunkers down, crouching low in its tracks,
and roars when a lorry goes over.
And later again, much later, in the kitchen,
very tired now at day’s ending, and empty,
I showed God how it feels to let the light coil of yourself
dissolve and grow age-old, nameless–
only a woman sweeping a floor, darkness growing.
–Kerry Hardie “Sheep Fair Day,” The Missouri Review

Kerry Hardie reading “Sheep Fair Day,” podcast, The Missouri Review:
Kerry Hardie reading “Sheep Fair Day” podcast

More on Kerry Hardie:
Poetry International

Writing Prompt:
Write your own poem to or about God, using an unexpected, surprising angle. It can work well to first do a freewrite about your childhood concept of God (what did you think God was like or looked like and could do?), in contrast to the idea of God you were raised with and/or your concept of God now. What would you like to say to God, ask of God, or what would you want God to understand about being human?

Visual (Concrete) Poetry

CONCRETE POETRY
Concrete Poetry on wikipedia:
Concrete Poetry

From wikipedia:
Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on.

It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has evolved to have distinct meaning of its own, but which shares the distinction of being poetry in which the visual elements are as important as the text.

George Herbert’s “Easter Wings”, printed in 1633 on two facing pages (one stanza per page), sideways, so that the lines would call to mind birds flying up with outstretched wings.

John Hollander, “Swan and Shadow”

And here a concrete poem by former student Leah Marie Waller, published in her collection Under the Cedar Tree (First World Publishing):

“Ode to My Foot” by Leah Marie Waller

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) was a French poet with a keen eye for visual art and the dimensions of writing. He was one of the first to explore the relationship between typography, art and poetry, especially in his later work, the Calligrammes, in which he incorporated words, letters and phrases into complex visual collages. Here you can see a lot of his work (toward bottom of link):
Words and Eggs

“Rain” by Guillaume Apollinaire (France, 1880-1918)

Translation without visuals (this time sideways):
It is raining of the voices of women as if
they were dead even in memory
It is you also that it rains marvelous
meetings of my life, oh little drops
And these reared-up clouds take themselves
to neighing an entire universe of auricular cities
Listen if it rains while regret and disdain
cry an ancient music
Listen to the falling of the bonds that
restrain you from top to bottom

Necktie by Apollinaire, from Caligrammes

Apollinaire, portrait

Apollinaire, Caliigrammes

Apollinaire, Calligrammes

Apollinaire, Caligrammes

VISUAL POETRY
Visual Poetry on wikipedia:
Visual Poetry

From wikipedia:
Visual poetry is poetry or art in which the visual arrangement of text, images and symbols is important in conveying the intended effect of the work. It is sometimes referred to as concrete poetry, a term that predates visual poetry, and at one time was synonymous with it.

Visual poetry was heavily influenced by Fluxus, which is usually described as being Intermedia. Intermedia work tends to blur the distinctions between different media, and visual poetry blurs the distinction between art and text. Whereas concrete poetry is still recognizable as poetry, being composed of purely typographic elements, visual poetry is generally much less text-dependent. Visual poems incorporate text, but the text may have primarily a visual function. Visual poems often incorporate significant amounts of non-text imagery in addition to text.

Here you can browse the Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry:
Sackner Archive

Meg Hitchcock

And here the link to Taylor Mali’s “Post Modern Poem” on youtube from Ella’s presentation:

 

Walt Whitman 1819-1892

Whitman in 1887

Do anything, but let it produce joy.–Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman on wikipedia:
Walt Whitman

From wikipedia:
Walter “Walt” Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass.

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”― Walt Whitman

Whitman at 28

From Song of Myself, 20:
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are
with me;
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into a new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man;
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride;
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough;
I show that size is only development.

Have you outstript the rest? Are you the President?
It is a trifle — they will more than arrive there, every one,
and still pass on.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;
I call to the earth and sea, half-held by the night.

Press close, bare-bosom’d night! Press close, magnetic, nourishing night!
Night of south winds! night of the large few stars!
Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night.

Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees;
Earth of departed sunset! earth of the mountains, misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth! rich, apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes!

Prodigal, you have given me love! Therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable, passionate love!

Whitman at 37

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large–I contain multitudes.–Walt Whitman

From: The Writer’s Almanac
From Song of Myself Whitman, Writer’s Almanac

from Song of Myself, 48
I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his
own funeral drest in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of
the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod
confounds the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man
following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the
wheel’d universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool
and composed before a million universes.
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God
not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than
myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and
each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own
face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is
sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that
wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

Whitman 1854

Song of Myself, 50
There is that in me-I do not know what it is-but I know
it is in me.

Wrench’d and sweaty-calm and cool then my body becomes,
I sleep-I sleep long.

I do know know it-it is without name-it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.

Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.

Perhaps I might tell more Outlines! I plead for my brothers
and sisters.

Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death-it is form, union, plan-it is eternal
life-it is Happiness.
–Writer’s Almanac (see link above)

Whitman photographed by Matthew Brady

Song of Myself, 51
The past and present wilt-I have fill’d them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! What have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a
minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through
with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already
too late?
–From Writer’s Almanac (see link above)

Walt Whitman’s handwritten manuscript for “Broadway, 1861”

Song of Myself, 52
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, complains
of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the
shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh and eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
–From Writer’s Almanac (see link above)

Whitman was influenced by the Song of Songs (Bible) in his use of long flowing lines and the grammatical construct of parallelism.

Song of Songs on wikipedia:
Song of Songs

The Song of Songs, also known as Song of Solomon, is a book of the Old Testament of the Bible. In spite of the lack of explicitly religious content, Song of Songs has often been interpreted as a parable of the relationship of God and Israel, or for Christians, Christ and the Church or Christ and the human soul, as husband and wife.

The Bride’s Reverie
By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth:
I sought him, but I found him not.
I will rise now, and go about the city
in the streets, and in the broad ways
I will seek him whom my soul loveth:
I sought him, but I found him not.
The watchmen that go about the city found me:
to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
It was but a little that I passed from them,
but I found him whom my soul loveth:
I held him, and would not let him go,
until I had brought him into my mother’s house,
and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
by the roes, and by the hinds of the field,
that ye stir not up, nor awake my love,
till he please.

You can find more here, Song of Songs (Song of Solomon):
Song of Songs

In turn, Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), one of the Beat poets, was influenced by the Song of Songs and Whitman both in his use of long flowing lines and parallel constructions in his famous epic poem Howl, in which he celebrated his fellow “angel-headed hipsters” and denounced the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity.

Here you can read Howl:
Howl by Ginsberg

Howl, manuscript page

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.
― Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
–Walt Whitman

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.
― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

There is no God anymore Divine than Yourself.–Walt Whitman

I am satisfied–I see, dance, laugh, sing.–Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
― Walt Whitman

Emily Dickinson 1830-1886

From the daguerreotype taken at Mount Holyoke, December 1846 or early 1847. The only authenticated portrait of Emily Dickinson later than childhood (age 16).

“I am small, like the wren, and my hair is bold, like the chestnut bur, and my eyes like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.”–Emily Dickinson

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me—
The simple News that Nature told,
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see—
For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—
Judge tenderly—of Me

Emily Dickinson on Wikipedia:
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Mass:
E.D. Museum

Some of her poetry is simply, keenly observant of the tiniest aspects of the world around her:

The Spider holds a Silver Ball
In unperceived Hands—
And dancing softly to Himself
His Yarn of Pearl—unwinds—

He plies from Nought to Nought—
In unsubstantial Trade—
Supplants our Tapestries with His—
In half the period—

An Hour to rear supreme
His continents of Light—
Then dangle from the Housewife’s Broom—
His Boundaries—forgot—

***
How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn’t care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.

This photo may depict Emily, at left, at the age of 30. It’s authenticity is currently being debated.

In other poems she spoke about perception itself:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

Emily Dickinson’s mind was not confined. The whole universe was her home:

The Brain—is wider than the Sky
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As Sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—

***
I dwell in Possibility—
A fairer House than Prose—
More numerous of Windows—
Superior—for Doors—

Of Chambers as the Cedars—
Impregnable of Eye—
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky—

Of Visitors—the fairest—
For Occupation—This—
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise—

E.D. used the word “prose” to refer to the ordinary world, while she considered herself “poetry” or “possibility.”

The Dickinson children (Emily on the left), ca. 1840

“To be made alive is so chief a thing all else inevitably adds. Were it not riddled by partings, it were too divine.”–Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson wrote about death as if she’d already been dead and knew Death intimately as a friend. This was at a time when women were expected to favor poetic subjects such as pansies and roses.

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned me softly why I failed?
‘For beauty,’ I replied.
‘And I for truth—the two are one;
we brethren are,’ he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

Emily Dickinson’s tombstone in the family plot.

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—
Untouched by Morning
And untouched by Noon—
Lie the meek members of the Resurrection—
Rafter of Satin—and Roof of Stone!

Grand go the Years—in the crescent—above them—
Worlds scoop their Arcs,
And Firmaments—row—
Diadems—drop—and Doges—surrender—
Soundless as dots—on a Disc of Snow—

***
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading, till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through—

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My Mind was going numb—

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—

And then a Plank of Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing—then—

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, literary critic

“Mr Higginson, Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?
The Mind is so near itself–it cannot see, distinctly–and I have none to ask–“–Emily Dickinson

Some of her poetry echoes the themes and passionate tone of the Eastern mystics:

The Infinite a sudden Guest
Has been assumed to be—
But how can that stupendous come
Which never went away?

***
Come slowly—Eden!
Lips unused to Thee—
Bashful—sip thy Jessamines—
As the fainting Bee—

Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums—
Counts his nectars—
Enters—and is lost in Balms.

And some of her poetry reached the rush of exaltation of some the poems written by Mirabai and Hadewijch:

What if I say I shall not wait!
What if I burst the fleshly Gate—
And pass escaped—to thee!

What if I file this Mortal—off—
See where it hurt me—That’s enough—
And wade in Liberty!

They cannot take me—any more!
Dungeons can call—and Guns implore
Unmeaning—now—to me—

As laughter—was—an hour ago—
Or Laces—or a Travelling Show—
Or who died—yesterday!

***
Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile—the Winds—
To a Heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden—
Ah! The Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight—
In Thee!

“True Poems flee.”–Emily Dickinson

She had a unique and bold approach to religion, refusing to worship as others did:

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church—
I keep it, staying at Home—
With a Bobolink for a Chorister—
And an Orchard, for a Dome—

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice—
I just wear my Wings—
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton—sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman—
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to heaven, at last—
I’m going, all along.
Bobolink: bird; surplice: loose, white vestment worn by clergy and choristers; sexton: bird, also officer at church maintaining property and ringing bell.

***
I never felt at Home—Below—
And in the Handsome Skies
I shall not feel at Home—I know—
I don’t like Paradise—

Because it’s Sunday—all the time—
And Recess—never comes—
And Eden’ll be so lonesome
Bright Wednesday Afternoons—

If God could make a visit
Or ever took a Nap—
So not to see us—but they say
Himself—a Telescope—

Perennial beholds us—
Myself would run away
From Him—and Holy Ghost—and All—
But there’s the ‘Judgment Day’!

Cover of the first edition of Poems, published in 1890 (minus original dashes)

Emily Dickinson barely published in her lifetime, but at her death 2,000 or more of her poems were found bound in small booklets (fascicles) in her dresser drawers. It was not until 70 years after her death that her poems were published in original form, with all of the dashes as she’d used them.

“Publication—is the Auction of the Mind of man—”–Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson touches upon the Unsayable with magnificent abstraction in her poems about Infinity, Eternity, and the “Soul’s Superior Instants”:

Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the Ground—
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found—
Returns us not, but after time
We soberly descend—
A little newer for the term
Upon enchanted Ground.

***
The Soul’s superior Instants
Occur to Her alone—
When friend and earth’s occasion
Have infinite withdrawn—

Or she, Herself, ascended
To Too remote a height—
For lower recognition
Than her Omnipotent—

This mortal abolition
Is seldom, but as fair
As Apparition—subject
To autocratic air—

Eternity’s disclosure
To favorites, a few,
Of the Colossal substance
Of Immortality—

***
There is a solitude of Space—
A solitude of Sea—
A solitude of Death, but these
Society shall be—
Compared with that profounder Site—
That polar Privacy—
A Soul Admitted to Itself:
Finite Infinity.

“My business is Circumference. My business is to love. My business is to sing.”–Emily Dickinson

Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to Death,
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Breath.

Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas

Meister Eckhart on wikipedia:
Meister Eckhart

Poems and Stories: Meister Eckhart Poems

I Bet God

If He
let go of my hand, I would
weep so loudly,

I would petition with all my might, I would cause
so much trouble

that I bet God would come to His senses
and never do that
again.
From: Love Poems from God, ed. Daniel Ladinsky

St. Thomas Aquinas on wikipedia:
Thomas Aquinas

Poems and Stories:
St Thomas Aquinas

All Things Desire

All things desire to be like God,
and infinite space is a mirror
that tries
to reflect His
body.
But it can’t.
All that infinite existence can show us of Him
is only an atom of God’s
being.
God stood behind Himself one night and cast a
brilliant shadow from which creation
came.
Even this shadow is such a flame that
moths consume their selves in it every second –
with their sacred passion to possess
beautiful
forms.
Existence mirrors God the best it can,
though how arrogant for any image in that mirror,
for any human being, to
think they know
His will;
for His will has never been spoken,
His voice would ignite
the earth’s wings
and all upon
it.
We invent truths about God to protect ourselves
from the wolf’s cries we hear
and make.
All things desire to be like God,
all things desire to
love.
From Love Poems from God, ed. Daniel Ladinsky

Hildegard von Bingen and St. Catherine of Siena

Illumination from the Liber Scivias showing Hildegard receiving a vision and dictating to her scribe and secretary

Hildegard von Bingen on wikipedia:
Hildegard von Bingen

Poems and Stories: Hildegard von Bingen Poems and Stories

St. Catherine of Siena on wikipedia:
St. Catherine of Siena

Poems and Stories: St. Catherine of Siena Poems and Stories

Marguerite Porete and Mechtild of Magdeburg

Marguerite Porete on wikipedia:
Marguerite Porete

Mechtild of Magdeburg on wikipedia:
Mechtild of Magdeburg

Mechtild had a defining ecstatic experience at the age of twelve, where she saw “all things in God and God in all things.”

Poems: Mechtild of Magdeburg Poetry

I cannot Dance

I cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me.
If you want me to leap with abandon,
You must intone the song.
Then I shall leap into love,
From love into knowledge,
From knowledge into enjoyment,
And from enjoyment beyond all human sensations.
There I want to remain, yet want also to circle higher still.
–Mechtild of Magdeburg

More poems and stories: Mechtild of Magdeburg Poems and Stories

Santa Teresa de Avila

Santa Teresa by Rubens

Santa Teresa de Avila or Saint Theresa of Avila on wikipedia:
Santa Teresa of Avila

Excerpt:
Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in 1515 in Gotarrendura, in the province of Ávila, Spain. Her paternal grandfather, Juan de Toledo, was a marrano (Jewish convert to Christianity) and was condemned by the Spanish Inquisition for allegedly returning to the Jewish faith. Her father, Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, bought a knighthood and successfully assimilated into Christian society. Teresa’s mother, Beatriz, was especially keen to raise her daughter as a pious Christian. Teresa was fascinated by accounts of the lives of the saints, and ran away from home at age seven with her brother Rodrigo to find martyrdom among the Moors. Her uncle stopped them as he was returning to the city, having spotted the two outside the city walls.

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini, Basilica of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome

Poems and Stories: Santa Teresa Poems

I Would Cease to Be

God
dissolved
my mind – my separation.
I cannot describe my intimacy with Him.
How dependent is your body’s life on water and food and air?
I said to God, ‘I will always be unless you cease to Be,’
And my Beloved replied, ‘And I
would cease to Be
if you
died.’
From: Love Poems from God, by Daniel Ladinsky

Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

San Juan de la Cruz

San Juan

Information on San Juan de la Cruz or St. John of the Cross on wikipedia:
San Juan de la Cruz

Poems and Stories: San Juan Poems

Stanzas Concerning An Ecstasy Experienced In High Contemplation

I entered into unknowing,
and there I remained unknowing
transcending all knowledge.

1. I entered into unknowing,
yet when I saw myself there,
without knowing where I was,
I understood great things;
I will not say what I felt
for I remained in unknowing
transcending all knowledge.

2. That perfect knowledge
was of peace and holiness
held at no remove
in profound solitude;
it was something so secret
that I was left stammering,
transcending all knowledge.

3. I was so ‘whelmed,
so absorbed and withdrawn,
that my senses were left
deprived of all their sensing,
and my spirit was given
an understanding while not understanding,
transcending all knowledge.

4. He who truly arrives there
cuts free from himself;
all that he knew before
now seems worthless,
and his knowledge so soars
that he is left in unknowing
transcending all knowledge.

5. The higher he ascends
the less he understands,
because the cloud is dark
which lit up the night;
whoever knows this
remains always in unknowing
transcending all knowledge.

6. This knowledge in unknowing
is so overwhelming
that wise men disputing
can never overthrow it,
for their knowledge does not reach
to the understanding of not
understanding,
transcending all knowledge.

7. And this supreme knowledge
is so exalted
that no power of man or learning
can grasp it;
he who masters himself
will, with knowledge in
unknowing,
always be transcending.

8. And if you should want to hear:
this highest knowledge lies
in the loftiest sense
of the essence of God;
this is a work of his mercy,
to leave one without
understanding,
transcending all knowledge.

Questions

WRITING PROMPT: Write a poem full of questions you might want to ask–questions for the moon, the earth, the sky, the stars, the wind, or a tree.

Some Questions You Might Want to Ask
by Mary Oliver

Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?

Questions for the Moon
by Ho Xuan Huong
from Vol. 29 No. 5

How many thousands of years have you been there?
Why sometimes slender, sometimes full?

How old is the White Rabbit?
How many children belong to Moon-Girl?

Why do you circle the purple loneliness of night
and seldom blush before the sun?

Weary, past midnight, who are you searching for?
Are you in love with these rivers and hills?

Questions for the Moon APR