76: Hardness

76
Hardness

Living people
are soft and tender.
Corpses are hard and still.
The ten thousand things,
the living grass, the trees,
are soft, pliant.
Dead, they're dry and brittle.

So hardness and stiffness
go with death,
tenderness, softness,
go with life.

And the hard sword fails,
the stiff tree's felled.
The hard and great go under.
The soft and weak stay up.

---

In an age when hardness is supposed to be the essence of strength, and even the beauty of women is reduced nearly to the bone, I welcome this reminder that tanks and tombstones are not very adequate role models, and that to be alive is to be vulnerable.

Beautiful Day

Having a Lee DeWyze kind of evening.

It's a beautiful day.

Become yourself

Life as a Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

---- Rumi

The Why of You, Two

Proof: The Why of You

If y = f(u) and u = g(x), then

The why and you, continuous
At a point wthout limit
Transforms you
Until
The change in you becomes
The change in why.

The change in why appears, over
The change in you, of course.
Until
The change in you comes
To nothing.

Limits show. Leaving
Until
The change in why becomes
The change in you.

Borges: A Reflection

Lately I've been lucky enough to have a friend reading me some of Borges' stories, and I'm fetched.

Borges has a lyrical command of the language, combined with a breadth of knowledge - either is capable of making me need to hear a sentence or phrase again, just to wallow in it. But Borges isn't content to be lyrically intelligent. He turns both language and intellect to present a mildly cheeky, always imaginative rendering of the inconsistent and often problematic machinations of society without cynicism. It's a deft balance, and he does it well, but more than that, he inspires me to reach beyond the easy offering of cynical views.

This is not a seeking of answers so much as it is a beautiful and ornate funhouse mirror in which we are still ourselves, reflected back in whorls of ourselves.

Assessment

Physical Therapy assessment day, and I feel queasy and in a fog.

Even Knitting seems too much for me just now beyond taking out a dozen rows or so to fix a mistake. Because anything worth knitting is worth knitting three or four times.