Don's Blog The Holy Longing

Here is a classic poem from Goethe. 

The Holy Longing

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

Johann W. Von Goethe, translated by Robert Bly and David Whyte

Are you a butterfly insane for the light.

Flower for the Day March Explosion 3-23-22

The daffodils and the jonquils have exploded - a feast for the eyes.

And here is a screen shot from a recent event that Jan and I attended on Zoom.

Fwd: Don's Blog "Going Back" 3-21-2

Here is another editorial that I wrote 19 years ago when I was Editor of the local journal - St Louis Metropolitan Medicine.

I was going to skip this one until I re-read it. 

 

Going back to a school reunion is always chancy. What I remember as most  surprising was that some of the college "friends" that I remembered being  close to were 'jerks' after 25 years and others that I remembered as 'jerks' turned out to be really nice. That is the joke of life as Heraclitus said, "Change is the only constant." 

Don's Blog War Poem 3-16-22

  Here is part of a war poem. War poems have gravitas. The results are the same. Only the dates change. Somehow I needed to do more than put up a flag with sunflowers on it.

 Käthe Kollwitz

 5   Self-Portrait 

Mouth looking directly at you

eyes in their inwardness looking

directly at you

half light    half darkness

woman, strong, German, young artist

flows into

wide sensual mouth meditating

looking right at you

eyes shadowed with brave hand

looking deep at you

flows into

wounded brave mouth

grieving and hooded eyes

alive, German, in her first War

flows into

strength of the worn face

a skein of lines

broods, flows into

mothers among the war graves

bent over death

facing the father

stubborn upon the field

flows into

the marks of her knowing—

Nie Wieder Krieg

repeated in the eyes

flows into

"Seedcorn must not be ground"

and the grooved cheek

lips drawn fine

the down-drawn grief

face of our age

flows into

Pieta, mother and

between her knees

life as her son in death

pouring from the sky of

one more war

flows into

face almost obliterated

hand over the mouth forever

hand over one eye now

the other great eye

closed

Muriel Rukeyser, The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser.

Copyright  2006.

Flower for the Day Daffodil 3-15-22

I planted a ton of daffodils and they are coming in later than usual. But I am ready for some color.

I love flowers that are about to open.

                Spring

       march winds gust -           gorse clings on tightly                  whilst daffodils sway

        LINDA JACKSON    

Don's Blog "This Isn't It?" 3-14-22

Here is an editorial from June,1983. 

[A little back story: Late one afternoon I was still in the office and got a phone call. Could I see

Neil Diamond who was having increased hoarseness and had a concert scheduled that night?

No one could say no to that. He came in and we had a brief professional visit. He did not bring up 

the 'emptiness deep inside'.  The nurses fought over the tongue blade I used. My family and I 

went to the concert that night. It was amazing ( I was not a devotee of rock concerts), as

 thousands held up their individual lights in the stands to "Turn On Your Night Lights" . For a brief

moment 'that was it'.]

The elusive end point is always out of reach. What do you think?

Don's Blog Where is the 'me'? 3-12-22

Here is a gift from a friend.

Zazen on Ching-t'ing Mountain

BY LI BAI

TRANSLATED BY SAM HAMILL

The birds have vanished down the sky.

Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains.

Don's Blog: Going Through the Motions 3-7-22

Here is an editorial from May of 1983. Every once in a while I have to smile at myself when I realize that after

almost 40 years that at times I am still just going through the motions. It could be a human "condition".

Don's Blog Emily Dickinson #1068 3-4-22

             

                                                                   (1068)

                                              Further in Summer than the Birds

                                              Pathetic from the Grass

                                              A minor Nation celebrates

                                              Its unobtrusive Mass. 

                                             No Ordinance be seen

                                             So gradual the Grace

                                             A pensive Custom it becomes

                                             Enlarging Loneliness.

                                             Antiques felt at Noon

                                            When August burning low

                                            Arise this spectral Canticle

                                            Repose to typify

                                            Remit as yet no Grace

                                            No Furrow on the Glow

                                           Yet a Druidic Difference

                                           Enhances Nature now

                                             

                                             Emily Dickinson (1866)

                                     

There is much unsaid in the poems of Emily Dickinson. Here is one of many interpretations.

 "One of the finest of the nature lyrics was written about 1866.  It attempts to conjure up that moment in late summer when the beholder is given a premonitory warning that summer is slipping away. The sudden realization of the fact—the first indeed that the beholder has had—comes as a dispiriting surprise. Nothing in nature yet is visibly altered, but the poet, because she now apprehends the truth, is changed.... Crickets arrive later in the summer than the birds do, and their song, warning us of summer's departure, is afflictive. Together and as a group they offer a High Mass to their Mother [or Low Mass]. We hear but cannot see them at their communion. The change of season (Grace) from summer to autumn is so gradual that only such a sign as the chirping of crickets brings the change to our notice. We muse upon the fact  sadly, for each year that passes increases the loneliness that we feel for things irrevocably gone. These  long, long thoughts (Antiquest) seem to tie the present to all pasts at the very moment (Noon) when the day seems most golden. The cricket songs remind us of, indeed they typify, the repose that Nature will take in her long winter sleep. Yet August is still at full, and glancing about we see no sign that the season is  changing (Remit as yet no Grace). No furrow yet crosses the glow of summer. Yet by an occult signal (for how do crickets know when their predestined moment to chirp has arrived?) we are warned that summer is passing. Thus our enjoyment of nature at the full is enlarged. Thomas H. Johnson  Emily Dickinson: An Interpretive Biography (Harvard 1955) 185-88.

That's probably more than you wanted or needed but I don't understand her poetry very well.

First Flower for the Day Crocus 3-2-22

Like magic the first crocuses show up in the brown leaves. I love all the flowers in the

 iris family. They are more than just a hint of what is to come.

snow has gone

colorful crocuses blooming

longing for Spring

Carpe Diem #97