I can see the Bible stories writ in these skies as I pass through ancient parts.
Slant shafts of light spill through the clouds, angling toward some blessed soul.
I can see distant clouds -- fringed in curls -- as if painted upon a cathedral ceiling.
Clouds that display the depth of an artist's skill and eye for perspective, but not true depth. (They seem too distant for that; they're too real to be real.)
And I look up again out of the window and am blinded by light that has pierced thick clouds, and I wonder whether anyone is seeing this light shaft bless me.
This darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollback highroad roaring down, In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth Turns and twindles over the broth Of a pool so pitchblack, fell frowning, It rounds and rounds Despair and drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew Are the groins of the braes that the brook threads through. Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Beginning my studies, the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact, consciousness -- these forms -- the power of motion, The least insect or animal -- the senses -- eyesight -- love; The first step, I say, aw'd me and pleas'd me so much, I have hardly gone, and hardly wish'd to go, any further, But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in ecstatic songs.
They carved a temple in a mountainside, Cutting away all rock that wasn't temple, Chipping from the top down and outside-in, Until some domed stone segregated sky From inner sanctum and all its idols, And it has stood over twelve hundred years, And it will surely stand twelve hundred more, But someday it'll be a mountain again.
There once was a forensic psychologist Who came across as quite the apologist: "The arsonist, you see, Simply yearns to be free -- Hence, burning all the walls - if you get my gist."
Without a word, The gist is grasped. With no wails or soft sobs, Sadness spreads heart-to-heart. There is an enigmatic Prime Mover With whom each of us either sinks or floats. Dregs of rustic wine in a fine strainer. Buds on the cusp of bloom turned back by cold. Dust motes spreading by Brownian motion. Sea spume floating and tumbling onto shore. Shallow, deep, cohering, or scattering. Of ten thousand, any sample will do.
NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a translation of the twelfth of the twenty-four poems. Translated titles vary: Herbert Giles entitled this one “Conservation,” whereas Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping called it “The Implicit Style.”
Tiger Riding for Beginners 