Their heart we do not know

Fish never tire of water; no one other than a fish knows their heart. 

Birds love the woods; no one other than a bird knows their heart. 

The same is true of those who savor reclusion.

(Kamo no Chomei, Tr. David Barnhill)

 

 

*The title of this post is a line from Bashō, the Japanese poet. 

I thank Michael Tweed for sharing the beautiful lines from Kamo no Chomei on Roxana Ghita's blog. 

And, it goes without saying, Roxana's post has been inspiring. 

The only difference is that my fish has no name yet.

The gentle tremor of a peacock woman

My resting place

Each and every one of us must have a resting place somewhere.

The resting place of my soul is a beautiful grove where my knowledge of you lives. 

(Extract from one of Gibran's letters dated 8th November 1908)

Little red berries

There’ll come a time

‘This can’t last. This misery can’t last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts, really. Neither 

happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There’ll come a time in the future when I shan’t mind about this 

anymore. When I can look back and say quite peacefully how silly I was. No, no, I don’t want that time to come, ever. 

I want to remember every minute. Always. Always, to the end of my days.’

(excerpt from Brief Encounter - UK, 1945; a film by David Lean; starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard)

Red was your colour

Red was your colour.

If not red, then white. But red

Was what you wrapped around you.

Blood red.

And outside the window

Poppies thin and wrinkle-frail

As the skin on blood.

Ted Hughes: Red (fragment)

Come and quench my thirst

Come, just come in this white balcony 

I have saved you the best place

It is everywhere, all around, just come

Wounded or happy, force me to accept the light of this day.

  
May is the month of tulips.

There is music, unheard by others, in my white space

And no dawn but a never-ending white day.

Your waters are deep.

I will show you the way to the ocean.

There is no use for language.

Come and quench my thirst for you.

Sunday mood with tulips

They say

They say

Love grows

When the fear of death

Looms.

They say

Courage looms

When the fear

Of never loving again

Disappears

In the smell of the enemy

Who crushes us so much

We can only fight.

Love and courage grow together

When the flesh is rawest

And the spirit charged

And distorted within the nightmare

We see the possibility

Of a future.

(Ben Okri: They Say)