participation with life

steve mccurry

 

Courage

is the measure

of our heartfelt participation

with life, with another, with a community,

a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily

to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those

things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending

vulnerabilities of those consequences. To be courageous is to seat

our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to

and into the necessities of relationships that often already

exist, with things we find we already care deeply

about: with a person, a future, a possibility

in society, or with an unknown that

begs us on and always has

begged us on.

 

David Whyte

 

all the celestial angels and maidens


yuko shimizu 

 

what you should know to be a poet

 
 

all you

can know about animals

as persons. the names of trees and flowers

and weeds. the names of stars and the movements

of planets and the moon. your own six senses,

with  a watchful elegant mind. at least

one kind of traditional magic:

divination, astrology, the

book of changes,

the tarot;

 

dreams.

the illusory demons

and the illusory shining gods.

kiss the ass of the devil and eat shit;

fuck his horny barbed cock, fuck

the hag, and all the celestial

angels and maidens

perfum’d and

golden– 

 

& then

love the human:

wives husbands and friends

children’s games, comic books, bubble-gum,

the weirdness of television and advertising.

work long, dry hours of dull work

swallowed and accepted and

lived with and finally

lovd. exhaustion, 

hunger,

rest.

 

the wild

freedom of the dance, extasy

silent solitary illumination, entasy

real danger. gambles and

the edge of

death.

 

Gary Snyder