Selected Poems

Text Box: Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill. Tagore (from the Gitanjali)

Text Box: To see a World in a grain of sand. And a Heaven in a wild flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand. And Eternity in an hour … William Blake in Auguries of Innocence

Text Box: Listen to the reed-flute How it complains Telling the tale of separation: Ever since I was cut from the reed-bed Men and women have moaned in my lament. I seek out a heart that, being separated, Is shred into pieces Then I can describe the pain of longing. Whoever has gone far from his origin Seeks to return to the days of his union. Rumi (from the Masnawi), trans. R. S.

Selected Poems

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Text Box: The quality of mercy is not strain’d. – It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest. – It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. William Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice

Text Box: The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes not discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuns not out … Whoever you are! Motion and reflection are especially for you, The divine ship sails the divine sea for you. Whoever you are! You are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, For none more than you are the present and the past, For none more than you is immortality. Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass

In Spring:

Cherry blossoms.

In Summer:

The cuckoo’s song.

In Autumn:

Moonlight.

In Winter:

Frozen snow.

How fresh are the seasons.

A haiku by Dogen

I’m nobody!

Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s pair of us ...

Emily Dickinson

How does the sea become the master of a hundred river valleys?

Because it lies lower than them all.

Tao Te Ching, #66

Text Box: Those sweet words we have told each other Are concealed in the heart of this ever-whirling firmament. One day they pour like whispering rain And our secret will sprout up from the world’s field. Rumi (from the Quatrains), trans. by R. S.

Text Box: The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Translated by Edward Fitzgerald

Text Box: Snowmelt pond warm granite we make camp, no thought of finding more. and we nap And leave our minds to the wind. On the bedrock, gently tilting, Sky and stone, Teach me to be tender. Gary Snyder, Turtle Island

Text Box: I hear the wind among the trees Playing celestial symphonies; I see the branches downward bent. Like keys of some great instrument. And over me unrolls on high The splendid scenery of the sky. Where through a sapphire sea the sun Sails like a golden galleon. Henry W. Longfellow from “A Day of Sunshine”

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Text Box: He who knows Love—becomes Love, and his eyes Behold Love in the heart of everyone, Even the loveless: as the light of the sun Is one with all it touches. He is wise With undivided wisdom, for he lies In Wisdom’s arms. His wanderings are done. Elsa Barker

Two birds, two sweet friends, dwell on the same tree

One eats the fruits thereof

The other looks on in silence.

from the Upanishad

Text Box: We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. T.S. Eliot (from Little Gidding)