the colour of spring

Forget our fate
The pedlar sings
Set up to sell my soul
I've lived a life for wealth to bring


And yet I'll gaze
The colour of spring
Immerse in that one moment
Left in love with everything

Soar the bridges
That I burnt before
One song among us all

because the earth is full of ancient rumour

Yes, and in that month when Proserpine comes back, and Ceres' dead heart rekindles, when all the woods are a tender smoky blur, and birds no bigger than a budding leaf dart through the singing trees, and when odorous tar comes spongy in the streets, and boys roll balls of it upon their tongues, and they are lumpy with tops and agated marbles...

and there is blasting thunder in the night, and the soaking millionfooted rain, and one looks out at morning on a stormy sky, a broken wrack of cloud; and when the mountain boy brings water to his kinsmen laying fence, and as the wind snakes through the grasses hears far in the valley below the long wail of the whistle, and the faint clangor of a bell...

and the blue great cup of the hills seems closer, nearer, for he had heard an inarticulate promise: he has been pierced by Spring, that sharp knife.

And life unscales its rusty weathered pelt, and earth wells out in tender exhaustless strength, and the cup of a man's heart runs over with dateless expectancy, tongueless promise, indefinable desire. Something gathers in the throat, something blinds him in the eyes, and faint and valorous horns sound through the earth.

The little girls trot pigtailed primly on their dutiful way to school; but the young gods loiter: they hear the reed, the oatenstop, the running goathoofs in the spongy wood, here, there, everywhere: they dawdle, listen, fleetest when they wait, go vaguely on to their one fixed home, because the earth is full of ancient rumor and they cannot find the way. All of the gods have lost the way.

from Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe

fears

there is the fear of waking up in the middle

of the night and not knowing what to do

and also the fear of never being able

to fall asleep again

there is the fear that life turns suddenly still

and one looks behind not knowing where

the past has gone and how it was lived, and by whom

there is also the fear

of failed encounters, even (or especially so) those

one has long dreamt of

there is the fear that the phone will ring

to let one know the child is sick again

and also the fear that the stranger one passes by 

suddenly turns around and the last thing one sees

is the silver flash of an unexplainable knife

(or, for variation, the fear of a temple blow leaving one

lying there calmly and almost gracefully, accomplished, 

as one has never been able to, 

while alive) 

there is the fear that the other has already departed, or will

soon leave, without notice

the fear that this body will never again know lust

or

it will be too frail to contain

that last overwhelming wave of desire

there are so many fears

and yet

above all these fears

there rises the soft gleam of the birch 

when spring is almost 

here.

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).

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.    

the imagined spring

our broken circles
our tears
the spring we had

long imagined

 -

now there is only stillness
where green should have thrust
its light, with a shiver

it's not the same

we had been watching Princess Mononoke for a couple of days then, a Miyazaki-anime in which prince Ashitaka struggles to make human beings and animals live together in harmony. she had kept asking me questions about the Japanese. that April day which happened to be her birthday as well, i took out a pair of chopsticks to teach her how to use them. at one point, she became pensive and, after a while, said almost imploring: oh how i wish Ashitaka could come out of the story and be here, with us! 

the intensity of her pleading caught me unawares: i am afraid this is not possible, little one. she looked me in the eye: please, talk to somebody who can take Ashitaka out of the story and bring him here, there must be this someone, somewhere. i lowered my eyes. how i wished that this could be true, that this someone really existed, for her, for all of us. instead, i said, in a sudden moment of inspiration: you know, i have an idea, i can make _you_ part of the story.
 

we took out toys and little chairs and made costumes and re-enacted the entire plot, right there, under the blossoming trees of the garden. we took turns in playing all roles, her face glowing with happiness. at some point, though, she stopped and looked at me, and sweet-bitter sadness glimmered in her eyes: still, it's not the same, not the same...

.

come, dear, let's go

LUBOV. What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn't it because you're young, because you haven't had time to suffer till you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward, isn't it because you cannot foresee or expect anything terrible, because so far life has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, but think only, be just a little magnanimous, and have mercy on me. I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather too, I love this house. I couldn't understand my life without that cherry orchard, and if it really must be sold, sell me with it!

ANYA. Mother! mother, are you crying? My dear, kind, good mother, my beautiful mother, I love you! Bless you! The cherry orchard is sold, we've got it no longer, it's true, true, but don't cry mother, you've still got your life before you, you've still your beautiful pure soul . . . Come with me, come, dear, away from here, come! We'll plant a new garden, finer than this, and you'll see it, and you'll understand, and deep joy, gentle joy will sink into your soul, like the evening sun, and you'll smile, mother! Come, dear, let's go!

Curtain.

from The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov

Translated by Julius West, 1916

.

some spring-time snow

here, amidst flurrying cherry blossoms
it’s as though some spring-time snow
were falling and did not melt  

monk Soku (ca. 880)

spending the spring night in the foothills
I slept, and deep inside my dream
blossoms fell without cease

Ki no Tsurayuki  (872-945)

..

on a moonless night

like a black cat
i come to you
in my dream

longing burning

breasts racing fire

heart in flames

my body is

the field of dreams

this moonless spring

of your lust

.

come spring

..

last petals (2)

View on ExposureRoom for HD

Note: This is the second in a series of intimate videos in which i intend to express my personal aesthetic views, while questioning myself and how i see the world. You can watch the first of the series, seeing, here ( i posted it a while ago).

..

last petals

you know what the Japanese say.
the flower turns people's blood crazy.
you said, too, the cherry blossoms were like butterflies
on my skin, making your blood crazy.

a darker flower grows within me now.
you left before it caught you beneath my ribs,
before it turned me into that butterfly,
that you'd kill someday, in your sleep.

note:

In the Japanese tradition, cherry blossoms are linked both to renewal and death, life joy and madness. And of course, ephemerality. It is said that one who enters a forest of blossoming cherry trees will go mad, because of their unbearable beauty.

..

this harsh, fiery spring

i walk through the fields of spring

in search of myself.
i carry:
the luxurious maps of being,
drawn with meticulous exactness.
a mirror, to make sure i never forget
whom exactly i look for.
a rope to jump, in case i find myself
a child again, flooded with the joy of living.
a handful of seeds to scatter, from time to time
(though more out of boredom, really,
than eagerness to become).

i make lists. i am very precise,
the same precision i use to extract dreams
out of my warm blood. for example,
what it is that stands between me and myself:
these fields, the line of burning, when
they meet the sky. this sunlit wound of waiting.
this freshly cut grass, this bird's wing.
my shadow, when you left.
the dazzling music of each step.
this endless fluttering back and forth,
again and again.

or rather this thought here, now.
the belief that i am still
- and gloriously - alive,
piercing through the heart
of this harsh, fiery spring.

..