So Long then….

 

I don’t like goodbyes,

So long then…………..

You Who Never Arrived

 

 

 

 

 

You who never arrived

in my arms, Beloved, who were lost

from the start,

I don’t even know what songs

would please you. I have given up trying

to recognize you in the surging wave of

the next moment. All the immense

images in me — the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,

cities, towers, and bridges, and un-

suspected turns in the path,

and those powerful lands that were once

pulsing with the life of the gods–

all rise within me to mean

you, who forever elude me.

 

 

You, Beloved, who are all

the gardens I have ever gazed at,

longing. An open window

in a country house– , and you almost

stepped out, pensive, to meet me.

Streets that I chanced upon,–

you had just walked down them and vanished.

And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors

were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back

my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same

bird echoed through both of us

yesterday, separate, in the evening…

 

Rainer Maria Rilke’
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

 

I Walk

I cannot sleep for dreaming; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the

 house as though I’d find you coming through some door.

Arthur Miller

The Wait

 

 

 “Out beyond ideas

of wrongdoing and

right doing,

there is a field.

 I will meet you there”

Rumi

I’m All Out of Words

If

 

If  you hold my heart in the palm of your hand

How far would you lead me?

How many steps?

Would you let me live in places unfathomable

In a place where only heartbeat exists?

Would you touch my heart in ways no one has or ever will?

 

If you hold my heart in the palm of your hand

Would your eyes still seek through the world of the lonely?

Or would you give yourself to my heart regardless of the cost

Never fearing of things lost?

It is not a word

It is not a word spoken, Few words are said; Nor even a look of the eyes Nor a bend of the head, But only a hush of the heart That has too much to keep, Only memories waking That sleep so light a sleep. ……………..Sarah Teasdale

A Portrait of Love

The two sat so far apart

That they could hardly whisper

The words were a wisp of warmth

A scent crept along stealthily

A tender tension hung about

As they reached out, drew close

Till one rose and turned.

 

Eventually they had changed

The place, one with the other.

 

Emotions hesitate

Seek a fresh mould

Turning their face with a longing

That lingers for a split second

In a frame that bears a new name

 

He stretched on the chair she sat on

Her hand brooding was on the arm rest

Where lay his fingers gazing with joy

At the speech in her eyes

And the look on her lips.

 

Moments were no more moments

As atoms in mounts of time

For these did cast in memory

A sacred spell like the roses

Whose fragrance outlives

The fast fading hours

Even as each rose is dying.

Did You Never Know?

Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me –

That your love would never lessen and never go?

You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,

You were too young to know.

 

Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it

far apart, far away in the gusty time of year –

Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,

I know your secret, my dear, my dear.

…Sarah Teasdale

I Have Two Ways of Loving You

I have two ways of loving You:
A selfish one
And another way that is worthy of You.
In my selfish love, I remember You and You alone.
In that other love, You lift the veil
And let me feast my eyes on Your Living Face.                                               …… Rabi´a al-Adawiyya.