Poetry
Poetry and Tao Te Ching translation
Tao Te Ching #8 (translation Cristina Viviani)
True goodness is like water,
without resistance, benefits all things.
Resting in places people
dislike, it’s close to the Tao.
In dwelling, live close to the earth.
In heart-mind, rest in quiet spaces.
In generosity, simply give.
In speech, be sincere.
In leadership, choose harmony.
In livelihood, embrace ability.
In action, timing is key.
Without quarrelling
–live with ease.
Tao Te Ching # 35 (translation Cristina Viviani)
Stay centred in the Tao and
the whole world follows
free from harm, peaceful, and radiant.
Music and food entice travellers to stop
while the Tao tastes insipid and bland.
Look, it’s barely visible.
Listen, it’s barely audible.
Its usefulness is inexhaustible.
Tao Te Ching # 3 (translation Cristina Viviani)
Not elevating one over another, prevents rivalry.
Not over-valuing rare things, prevents theft and extinction.
Not flaunting desirable goods, prevents confusion.
Therefore the sage leads by:
settling minds and nourishing souls,
weakening desires and strengthening bones,
encouraging not knowing over endless seeking,
so deterring the knowing from interfering.
By simply responding, all flows into place.
(It all Depends on Gravity manuscript)
i. Linea
An infinite series of points solicits time,
she beckons length, shy of breadth;
linked x-y co-ordinates join, separate, divide,
her heartbeat skips on the cardiogram;
a river’s pulse oscillates oceans,
her resonance fills—thunderbolt rainfall;
night strips serpent, rib, rhizome,
her stars wander an arc;
feathered too small to measure,
her unseen lines repeat a shoreline;
ice crystals uncurl minute replications,
fractals slip through a pin hole.
ii. Crease
The day you left a fold in silence
leans impossibly close,
unravels a lifetime in
a few words spoken
—the unspoken weight more than I.
Each moment crinkles an hour, a day, a month
echoes, elongate the years, decades…
Eyes closed
my fingers trace over your eyebrow, around your ear, under
your chin, down the hairline of your chest
fingertips shhh—i will not give you away.
I trace a line to imagine
a shape to make the letter u
fingertips shhh—dare i give you away?
iv. Trajectory
Between my skin and yours
breathes a slip-line, a trajectory
bought for knowledge.
Excerpt from Space poem series
(It all Depends on Gravity manuscript)
vii. Timespace
They pin me down to x, y, z co-ordinates
plus time; locate me in timespace.
Not all gravity shapes the same:
they fold me up, a plasticine doll,
they press me against the wall,
stretch me in ten dimensions.
This lifetime escapes a glance.
Light rays bend in gravitational fields
—more or less depending on:
they say, we come from stardust
space contained in one single atom
all 170 billion galaxies plus, their outer edge
forty-six to forty-seven billion light years away;
they say, the universe is flat, rapidly expanding
appears in all directions, finite;
they say, imagination tells time;
I can move freely only in space—not time
now say, what if—I stop imaging time?
Excerpt from Shape poem series
(It all Depends on Gravity manuscript)
i. Eclipse
She disappeared with this morning’s
sky, shied into Venus’ girdle.
Last night, caught off guard—the full moon
slipped on earth’s shadow
painting a pale blood-orange
over the evening’s darkening sky.
A dim glow rising outline,
a jet-black eye pierced a hole,
the sun shot thru
moon’s rim flirted, fire white
spark stretched ’round a crescent.
Light cast past her cradling wide
shading in moon’s darkness
shrinking night.
Fifteen Degrees (Intermediary States manuscript)
The long trill
of the meadow lark
collides with night
—reassures sunrise. Vagrant
clouds drift. The crow lifts
off a cedar branch,
wind catching its wings,
makes a skyward leap, twists
headfirst, a low black swoon.
Maples in pale red and green,
buds bigger than yesterday.
In the gusty breeze
weeping birches glitter,
dress the slate gray sky
with a trillion stars
that land
quiet grace
in my hands.
In the hour of noon
the sun paints
a slice of light
fifteen degrees over us
—an eye
open to god.