wednesday morning with Eugenia Kim

“… I realized it wasn’t the answers I was seeking all those years that mattered as much as the act of seeing itself. It was incredible, this human capacity for learning, for hope, for love, that persisted like the box of light in my cell, the waters that flowed in my dream. It was beyond my understanding. Tears came as I surrendered to this wonderment of being.”*

*cited: Eugenia Kim, The Calligrapher’s Daughter.

crown of leaves

A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map leads him there.
Or perhaps memory. Once long ago in the sun,
When snow first fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,
Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast in motion.
He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I. ~Czeslaw Milosz*

*cited: Trans. Robert Haas. Poetry-Chaikhana.com Sacred Poetry from Around the World