Be Curious, Be Aware

Our business in living
is to become fluent
with the life we are living,
and art can help this.

― John Cage

Boast of Quietness

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to
understand them.

Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.

My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of that same poverty.
They speak of homeland.

My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,
the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.

More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.

My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive.

― Jorge Luis Borges

"Eyes Only"

Dear lost sharer
of silences,
I would send a letter
the way the tree sends messages
in leaves,
or the sky in exclamations
of pure cloud.

—Linda Pastan

Haiku: Such utter silence!

Such utter silence!
     even the crickets'
singing...
Muffled by hot rocks


English version by Peter Beilenson
Original Language Japanese, by Matsuo Basho