Three-With the Moon and His Shadow

Three-With the Moon and His Shadow
By: Li Po


With a jar of wine I sit by the flowering trees.
I drink alone, and where are my friends?
Ah, the moon above looks down on me;
I call and lift my cup to his brightness.
And see, there goes my shadow before me.
Ho! We're a party of three, I say,-
Though the poor moon can't drink,
And my shadow but dances around me,
We're all friends tonight,
The drinker, the moon and the shadow.
Let our revelry be meet for the spring time!

I sing, the wild moon wanders the sky.
I dance, my shadow goes tumbling about.
While we're awake, let us join in carousal;
Only sweet drunkenness shall ever part us.
Let us pledge a friendship no mortals know,
And often hail each other at evening
Far across the vast and vaporous space.

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart

Exposed on the cliffs of the heart


Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look, how tiny down there,
look: the last village of words and, higher,
(but how tiny) still one last
farmhouse of feeling. Can you see it?
Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Stoneground
under your hands. Even here, though,
something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge
an unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air.
But the one who knows? Ah, he began to know
and is quiet now, exposed on the cliffs of the heart.
While, with their full awareness,
many sure-footed mountain animals pass
or linger. And the great sheltered bird flies, slowly
circling, around the peak's pure denial. - But
without a shelter, here on the cliffs of the heart...

By: Rainer Maria Rilke

When I Am With You

When I Am With You
By Robert Bly


When I am with you, two notes of the sarod
Carry me into a place where I am not.
All the farms have disappeared into air.

Those wooden fence posts I loved as a boy-
I can see my father's face through their wood,
And through his face the sky as threshing ends.

It is such a blessing to hear that we will die.
Ten thousand barks become a hundred thousand;
I knew this friendship with myself couldn't last forever.

Touch the sarod's string once more, so that the finger
That touched my skin a moment ago
Can become a lightning bolt that closes the door.

Now I know why I keep hinting at the word you-
The sound of you carries me over the border.
We disappear the same way a baby is born.

Some foolish boy with my name has been trying
To peer all afternoon between the thick boards
Of the fence. Tell that boy it isn't time.