January 19, 2011
Wednesday Poem
Tao’s a bottomless well
ever used, never drawn down
Call it eternal no thing ness;
an infinite no thing filled with all;
a void of countless possibilities.
Tao is in our face
under our nose.
What made Tao is older than God.
What made it, who knows?
-Lao-Tzu in The Tao Te Ching
There is Nothing False in Thee
There is nothing false in thee.
In thy heart the youngest body
Has warmth and light.
In thee the quills of the sun
Find adornment.
What does not die
Is with thee.
Thou art clothed in robes of music.
Thy voice awakens wings.
And still more with thee
Are the flowers of earth made bright.
Upon the deeps the fiery sails
of heaven glide.
Thou art the radiance and the joy.
Thou heart shall only fail
When all else has fallen.
What does not perish
lives in thee.
by Kenneth Patchen
from Kenneth Patchen Selected Poems
Modern Library, 1937-1957
Posted by Jim Culleny at 07:18 AM | Permalink
Comments
More quills of the sun from Miss Joni...
"Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive"!!
Posted by: Frances Madeson | Jan 19, 2011 10:48:23 AM
I'd like to meet thee... thee sounds amazing! :)
Seriously though, my favorite part:
Thou art clothed in robes of music.
Thy voice awakens wings.
I can almost feel/see that stanza, if I could draw, I would draw that stanza.
Posted by: unfinishedscriptshedscript | Jan 19, 2011 12:49:06 PM
A friend wrote me recently, after I'd posted another poem by Patchen, "I'd forgotten about Patchen. He still holds up."
He does.
Posted by: Jim | Jan 19, 2011 12:57:54 PM
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