8. The Age of Discovery
You make choices.
Those choices make you.
Then you make choices.
Always a spiral – upwards or downwards – it's your choice.
Anastasya Shepherd
Having circumnavigated our world,
I realize that it is not a sphere,
But a spiral.
I am back where I started from.
The path ahead is as unknown
As it was before the journey.
But you, my friend,
Who steadfastly stayed here
At the origin,
How did you find out?
Or was it clear?
Was it clear all along?
Theological Questions
Circling the pulsing center of their universe
The fish are passing through sunlight and shadow.
Their existence is framed, circumscribed, and protected
By the carved marble rim of the fountain’s basin.
Do they fear or worship the hand that feeds them,
Removes their dead, repairs the stonework;
The hand that brought their ancestors here
From another world in a wooden bucket?
Can they see that the hand moves more slowly now,
That the bony fingers have grown stiff with age?
Portrait of a room
Now, as a human life in this room
Is ebbing,
The attitudes of the objects
Become apparent.
The rocking chair
Stretches forth its arm-rests,
Ready to embrace, to lull,
To enthrall with the stories
Of a long life-time.
The mirror turns a blind eye
To all that is happening here,
Gazing intently
Into its own distant dreams.
The hospital bed knows
That it is seen as ugly,
Unwanted in every room that it enters.
Yet it goes about its work
Reliably and with care,
Keeping the patient
As comfortable as it is able.
It does its best to be unobtrusive.
The edge of the crystal vase
Glitters hard in the corner.
Being confined to a sick-room,
Enduring the dusty monotony
Of pathetic fake flowers —
This is not what it’s made for!
The curtains hold back the darkness,
Soften the mid-day light.
Catching the slightest motion of the air,
They stir like wings,
Like the white sails of a ship,
Sensing the wind, the space
Of a great invisible world.
Orbit
The Earth falls towards the Sun.
There are no elephants, no turtles,
No hand of Providence
For the world to rest on.
What keeps the planet in orbit
Is its unwavering observance
Of “the laws of nature”.
But what is inside those words?
Dead force?
A command backed by fear?
A solemn promise given long ago?
Or a bitter-sweet journey
On a freely chosen path?
Creation stories
To Orna Greenberg
In the story
Of the first creation
The Divine power
Lifts the supple clay,
To mold His image,
To imprint Her likeness.
The Divine breath
Enters the human shape,
Calls it to life.
The potter’s hands
Explore a lump of clay,
Stroke, press in
The hollow of the vessel,
Form the plump lip,
Extend the graceful neck.
The artist dips the brush
Now into paint, now into water.
An image blossoms:
Ocher and sienna blend;
The colors thicken —
Shadows outline the round rim,
The colors thin —
Light curves down the glazed flank.
You
Lift the clay jar,
Gaze at the painting,
Read these lines,
You
Have the power
To breathe into a creation
Awareness, thought, meaning,
Life.
Creation
It is possible to escape,
To hide from the darkness:
Squeeze your eyes shut,
Press hard on the eyelids.
Circles of phantom fire
Will blaze in front of your staring pupils.
Let us trade: I would barter
My past, my memory,
For a handful of stars,
For the dimmest of constellations…
But you drive a hard bargain
By simply refusing to exist.
In a blind rage
I splinter my heart into kindling,
Pour gasoline,
Set the whole mess aflame,
Watch as it burns to ashes.
But it keeps on beating,
It keeps on beating in the darkness.
There is nothing to do but sit.
Stare into the void.
Read the blanks on the empty page,
Over and over,
Till they form a pattern,
Till the repetition yields a meaning:
“Let there be darkness, for there is.”
There is darkness.
There is darkness.
There is darkness.
All there is, is darkness.
Until slowly, slowly
Contours form,
A faint outline emerges:
“Let there also be light.”
Realities
we create a thin veneer of simplicity and predictability
over terrifyingly unmanageable chaos
and call it reality.
Anastasya Shepherd
We call it reality
And consider the matter settled,
So we can turn our attention to
Making sandwiches for the school lunchbox,
Submitting the quarterly forecast report,
Walking the dog,
Writing the thank you note.
At least, that is how it is
For some of us,
Some of the time.
We collect data about it,
Quantify the uncertainty
Of our measurements,
Publish papers in academic journals.
We put ironic quotation marks
Around its edges,
Take selfies.
We blaze with anger about what it is,
Emblazon on our banners
What we want it to be.
We split into tribes, go to war,
Mangle and kill each other
Under the pretext
That there is one right way,
One right answer to every question
About the definition
Of a pin, a dance, an angel;
About the way to count how many…
We beat our heads against it,
Search for the path, the mantra, the koan,
Meditate, keep diaries,
Create sand mandalas of great beauty,
Sweep all the colors together,
Let the river carry them away
As we fall into insanity,
Rise to enlightenment,
Or the other way around.
We pick it up like a toy, a ball.
We run across sunlit grass,
Laughing,
Tossing it back and forth.
We forget it in the gathering dusk
Under the lilac bushes.
It is time to go back in,
To get some sleep.
At least, that is how it is
For some of us,
Some of the time.
Constructivism
Proof by construction is the path
That God Himself has set in math.
To prove that chaos can be transformed
Into a world, the world was formed.
A choir of angels came to be
Singing: “Hosanna! QED!”
But man, a thing of clay and dust,
Had little wit and too much trust.
Soon he was fooled and led astray.
And we, his children, to this day
Remain a weak and bounded race.
Induction for the finite case
Is all we do, till in the end
Each one must meet the final N.
But there is yet a baser proof.
It’s branded by a fiery hoof.
Proof by negation seeks to alter
The very truth. And should you falter,
And in your pride or desperation
Seek to invoke the dark negation,
Repent! Or you should ever rue
Your “Let the opposite be true”.
Double Negative
It is like a sword that wounds, but cannot wound itself…
Zenrinkushu translated by R. Blyth
Nothing is certain.
Nothing can be guaranteed.
Not even nothing.
American Gothic
She dressed properly,
She spoke quietly,
She loved modestly,
She died peacefully.
Harmless, humble,
God's lamb…
Damn!
Supernova
Loss drives concealed love
To go supernova.
It blows its cover
With a flood of blinding light.
It bursts out,
Piercing space with rays of radiation.
It screams and screams,
Pressing hard against the walls of reality,
Pushing apart the boundaries
Of the universe.
Trees dreaming in winter
In deep winter the sleeping trees
Dream of branching out,
Spreading wider
Than the reach of their earthly life.
Their roots drink in the stillness that pools
Beneath all layers of the ground.
Their crowns bloom with constellations.
They hum and sing with winged beings
Who are tinier than the smallest insect,
Greater than the largest bird.
They drop their luminous fruit
Into the stream
That flows far beyond
The shores of the known world.
Soap bubble
God as a soap bubble:
Water, breath, form.
Sublime, radiant,
Evanescent, eternal,
Emerging again and again,
Beguiling the senses
With rainbow illusions,
Holding the light of existence
With perfect clarity.
Kingfisher
Indigo and russet dandy,
Fearless diver,
You plunge from a tree
Into a stream;
Burst from the water
Into the sky.
Hungry hunter,
You snatch living quicksilver
From the swift current.
In your sharp beak
Quivers my soul.
Глина
Стихи на русском языке
Глина
Как луч, преображённый витражом,