of all the hearts

of all the hearts i've held inside this cage

this one is by far the fiercest. it wants love

to conquer death, and will settle for nothing

less, will do anything to get what it desires.

you can move closer, you will be safe.

to you it will seem a beehive and a gate.

and you will not have to do the work -

harvest the honey, pound at the gate;

honey will pour forth like a flood, and the gate

will pound like a fist to get you to enter.

poem by Andreas at Untitled

 

abundance of being

It is only that this warmth and movement are like
The warmth and movement of a woman.

It is not that there is any image in the air
Nor the beginning nor end of a form:

It is empty. But a woman in threadless gold
Burns us with brushings of her dress

And a dissociated abundance of being,
More definite for what she is—

Because she is disembodied,
Bearing the odors of the summer fields,

Confessing the taciturn and yet indifferent,
Invisibly clear, the only love.

Wallace Stevens, 

The Woman in Sunshine

(for James, thanking him for introducing me to this wonderful poem)

summer-blue-lit

My songs were lit with summer-blue

And grew dark on their return.

Meine Lieder trugen des Sommers Bläue
Und kehrten düster heim.

Else Lakser-Schüler, tr. by Felix de Villiers

however sullied

go to: however series

ah, the summer fields (1)

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Mary Oliver 

(from The Summer Day)

my floating films

this is just to let you know that i set up a new blog for my videos. my previous host, the Exposure Room site, was shut down and my films aren't available any longer, the older links on the Bridge don't work now. i have decided to upload them again (gradually!) to the new site, so if you are interested, please check there from time to time.  

my video blog

this heart of mine

Coming and going
I feel neither
beginning nor end…
what a strange thing
this heart of mine!
 

 

Ōtagaki Rengetsu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

last night a flower blossomed and the world became fragrant

When one flower opens, all forms are fresh, equally knowing the spring wind for ten thousand miles.

Without any sounds in the branches, the breeze carries the spring color.

Wind whistles through the branches; rain breaks up the clumps of earth. Toads croak and earthworms cry out. Simply see that peach blossoms open by the mountain huts. A thousand gates and ten thousand doors face the valley streams in spring.

The blossoms of the world open, and this is a heavenly realm.

Who would complain that spring radiance does not seek after anything?

In spring, beyond our own efforts, a withered tree returns to life and flowers.

A single plum flower in the cold,
with fragrant heart blossoming,
Calls for the arising of spring in the emptiness of the pot of ages.

We must cherish this time, as our paths will soon part.
For many months, the days and nights have quickly passed.
The spring wind stirs, and clouds come and go.
A thousand showers of evening rain fill the lake.

* all quotes from Zen master Dōgen's teachings (Dogen's Extensive Record).

Ode to the Humblest of Flowers

Dandelion, ecumenic flower,

 the year obeys

your golden ardor

 to assign its happiest days

on unwritten folios.

You are worthy of a hymn,

 unregarded roadside bloom,

your one pure wish to sow

 the earth with seed --

so you blossom and fade,

 contriving the halo around

some unknown saint’s head.

Lucian Blaga, tr. by James Owens 

Odă simplisimei flori

Păpădie, ecumenică floare,
după a ta aurie ardoare
– pe nescrisele file –
anul îşi hotăreşte fericitele zile.

De un pean te-nvredniceşti,
tu, neluată în seamă, floare de rând.
Sămânţă să faci pe pământ
e tot ce doreşti. Alt gând nu porţi.
Dar înfloreşti şi asfinţeşti
alcătuind o aureolă de sfânt.

the solace of flowers

and then the colours came, and with them my endless fascination with vases - my vases full of flowers, again and again... i read in Kafka's letters to Felice that he "has no feelings for flowers", never had, flowers leave him cold, unless they come from her, and even then... 

some pages later, i read: "with the effort needed in order to keep myself alive and to not lose my mind, i could have built the pyramids". 

if only he had known the solace of flowers, it nearly burst out of me, if only ---

and off into the empty sky

you will be able to see more photos from my travel to Japan on the new blog that i have created for telling the story of my trip:  

and off into the empty sky

spring cleaning

and what if the oldest shoes are the dearest?

with more precision and more truthfulness than our memory, they keep track, in each crack and dirt mark and dust-blackened spot, of what we have learned to call "our life", "our past" - though nobody knows exactly to whom this past, this life, belong.

with tenderness, the old shoes stare back at us, while we, gentle hypocrites or simply forgetful, unable to glimpse beyond our self-woven illusions, never take notice.

lurking, waiting for spring

this year i have found myself lurking in the darkest of shadows, waiting for spring, hungrier than ever before. yet the deeper, the more painful this hunger grows, the more aware i become that, when i long for spring, i in fact long for a complicated and tumultuous mixture made out of the springs i have lived through, bits of them scattered throughout my body, springs i imagine to come, springs as i want them to be, floating memories, disconnected from whatever might have given birth to them in the first place (if such a birth has ever existed), hues, words soft like silk, which i tend to taste on my tongue, while all along believing that i lurk, waiting for this spring which has to come now, which has already come, unique, pure, simple and raw. 



don't let the photograph fool you: she doesn't make this mistake. yet.    

as spring approaches, on my street

right before the spring's glow,

let us enjoy the gray once more,
and the hues of the monotonous hour,
and the low tide of the lonely,

unredeemed hope -