Moonrise --
big and bright --
over a quiet town.
People stare --
alone but simultaneously --
'til the milky light
hurts their eyes.
This moon reminds them
of one from childhood
but seems unlike so many since...
But it's all one moon.
in an open field,
one sunflower towers,
its head drooping.
The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is
happiness,
I think it pervades the open air, waiting at
all times,
Now it flows unto us, we are rightly
charged.
Here rises the fluid and attaching character,
The fluid and attaching character is the
freshness and sweetness of man and
woman,
(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher
and sweeter every day out of the roots of
themselves, than it sprouts fresh and
sweet continually out of itself.)
Toward the fluid and attaching character
exudes the sweat of the love of young and
old,
From it falls distill'd the charm that mocks
beauty and attainments,
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing
ache of contact.
lazy kayakers
drift downstream as long-tailed
boats chug upstream.
Jagged window
on the world:
All light and sound
deadened,
but from one opening --
The cave mouth.
From behind
nothing stirs,
nothing glows,
shadows are subsumed
by shadow.
Eyes and mind
frame the cave mouth,
making the mind
a cave within a cave:
layered silence
layered remoteness,
and all input of a single,
common source.
How many caves deep might
this thing go?
Autumn morn sunlight
brightens the grassy bank,
& throws long shadows.
Here is the efflux of the soul,
The efflux of the soul comes from within
through embower'd gates, ever provoking
questions,
These yearnings why are they? these
thoughts in the darkness why are they?
Why are there men and women that while
they are nigh me the sunlight expands my
blood?
Why when they leave me do my pennants
of joy sink flat and lank?
Why are there trees I never walk under but
large and melodious thoughts descend
upon me?
(I think they hang there winter and summer
on those trees and always drop fruit as I
pass;)
What is it I interchange so suddenly with
strangers?
What with some driver as I ride on the seat
by his side?
What with some fisherman drawing his
seine by the shore as I walk by and pause?
What gives me to be free to a woman's and
man's good-will? what gives them to be
free to mine?
Our closest relative, the Chimpanzee
Lacks our affinity to be fancy.
To them we are but pant-wearing buffoons
Who've lost all freedom to shoot the moon.
at day's end,
the sun dips behind a tree,
but fails to hide.
Now if a thousand perfect men were to
appear it would not amaze me,
Now if a thousand beautiful forms of
women appear'd it would not astonish
me.
Now I see the secret of the making of the
best persons,
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and
sleep with the earth.
Here a great personal deed has room,
(Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the
whole race of men,
Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms
law and mocks all authority and all
argument against it.)
Here is the test of wisdom,
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having
it to another not having it,
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of
proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and
qualities and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and
immortality of things, and the excellence
of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight
of things that provokes it out of the soul.
Now I re-examine philosophies and
religions,
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet
not prove at all under the spacious clouds
and along the landscape and flowing
currents.
Here is realization,
Here is a man tallied -- he realizes here what
he has in him,
The past, the future, majesty, love -- if they
are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.
Only the kernel of every object nourishes;
Where is he who tears off the husks for you
and me?
Where is he that undoes stratagems and
envelopes for you and me?
Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously
fashion'd, it is apropos;
Do you know what it is as you pass to be
loved by strangers?
Do you know the talk of those turning eye-
balls?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 