Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Rotation No.25,550




Great men want the four seas. I’ve only
wanted old age to come unnoticed like
This . My family together in one place,
kids and grandkids looking after each
other still, I linger out mornings over
koto and wine, the wine-jar never dry.
My clothes a shambles, exhausting every
joy, I sleep late now, and nod off early.
Why live like all those fine men, hearts
stuffed with fire and ice to the end,
their hundred-year return to the grave
nothing but an empty path of ambition?

- The Selected Poems of T’ao Ch’ien, translated by David Hinton © 1993.

Old – P. Simon



The Human race walked the earth for 2.7 million
We estimate the universe to be 13-14 billion
When all those numbers tumble into your imagination
Consider that the lord has been here before creation
God is old
We're not old
God is old
He made the mold
Take your clothes off
Adama and Eve
  - Old, P. Simon

"As a white candle in a sacred place, so is the beauty of an aged face." 

      - Joseph Campbell
_______________________________________________________



Rotation 25,550

That day that was once only realized in dreams
Of poet musings and in the songs of sojourning desperadoes
Had provided evidence of finally being born.
Three score and ten years in the making
That recent almost never-ending cold dark night
Slowly faded into yesterday.
Bright red bead burning sanctified glow
Calmly and deliberately peaked
Over the endless sea’s horizon.
The third rock’s rotation prevailing again.
Picaresque hero shaded that unknown glow from blinding his eyes.
Seeing in the light would need to be relearned.
His voice too yearned to be recovered and heard.
They say that some winters are longer than others.
Some say that wandering forty years in the desert
Before accidentally discovering paradise
Is really no big deal.
Many lost pilgrims never get to reach the River Jordan.
Words of the quiet one repeated
Like the song of a wind chime breaking the silence
By the breath of God.
“The only real purpose is to discover God…
The answer is really how to find peace of mind.
That’s what we are really here for. “
Aging weathered worn wayfaring vessel
From the arduous constant journey slows the pace of passage.
Yet the spirit that set sail in the first place had slowly
Come to Ulysses’ realization.
The chartered mission never had the intention to be known
For battles won or by the size and number of beasts conquered
Or by the bounty of worldly treasure owned.
The fortune of the adventure to date
Was that the desire for possessions
Never completely possessed him.

“So far so good”

    - JF Sobecki
_________________________________________________________________


My Back Pages – B. Dylan
 


Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth,"rip down all hate,"I screamed
Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers foundation deep, somehow
Ah, I was so much older than I'm younger than that now.
 - My Back Pages, B. Dylan

Old Friends/Bookends


Can you imagine us
Years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy

- Old Friends/Bookends  , P. Simon


EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
  -- David Whyte
  ©2003 Many Rivers Press


I Worried

I worried a lot.  Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up.  And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

   - Mary Oliver




Oftentimes there are those who can articulate through poems and songs precisely what has been rumbling on within ( Please watch all four parts)

George Harrison’s Last Interview p 1
 

George Harrison’s Last Interview p 2
 

George Harrison’s Last Interview p 3


George Harrison’s Last Interview p 4





amdg

















Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC

Monday, January 1, 2018

Resolver



                          






“You have no right to tie yourself in knots because you want to know the outcome of what you are doing. Don’t, no, no. Let it go. Let it go into history. Let it go into Christ. Let it go into generations. Let it go into the children. Play it and pray it well…. as (Dorothy) Day taught we may never see the good outcome of the good we do - that we must do it anyway".
 - D. Berrigan SJ



Sitting on the starting line of another year
There were a couple of basic questions yet unresolved.
Journal and pen in hand the questions flowed to fill the virgin spaces between the lines.

Do we really believe that B.F. Skinner is the primary
student of the divine who disclosed
the secret to serenity and the purpose of life itself?

Is the intention of faith, religious practice and good works
All part of some insurance policy concerning the afterlife?

Do we believe that serving the poor refugee, the poorest of the poor and the sick are part of some social experiment that if we get it right we win two tickets to paradise?

Are we to love another and our children only if they love us in return or do we wait until they love us first before we return the love?

Is making ourselves great really a result of isolation and self-centeredness?

If the divine insisted on consistency and subscription to only one path to grace then why is all existence in the universe so diverse?

The questions suddenly ceased. Then silence  …. A long pause and the words on the pages evaporated. The mystic voices of Berrigan, Day and the poets whispered sweetly as he let it all go.

Simple isn’t it?


Keep it Simple - V. Morrison



Tomorrow Never Knows – Beatles
 



Soul of a Man – B. Cockburn


                                                
                                  Practical Reasons to Welcome Poetry into our lives
                                                                  ( Click link)


Where Many Rivers Meet

All the water below me came from above
All the clouds living in the mountains
gave it to the rivers
who gave it to the sea, which was their dying.

And so I float on cloud become water,
central sea surrounded by white mountains,
the water salt, once fresh,
cloud fall and stream rush, tree root and tide bank
leading to the rivers' mouths
and the mouths of the rivers sing into the sea,
the stories buried in the mountains
give out into the sea
and the sea remembers
and sings back
from the depths
where nothing is forgotten.
David Whyte 2004


The Buddha’s Last Instruction
“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal—a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire—
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

    - Mary Oliver


Wild geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

       - Mary Oliver





amdg



“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”
        - Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”
       - Jack Kerouac













Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC