The Lilac Shadow of a Tree
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I am you and who I see is me, if anything
happens it happens in me, it happens in you,
I see the lilac shadow of a tree and it seems
to me that there may be times when you just
have to love someone, or people, or a whole
world from a distance, but distance means
nothing when your loved one means everything.X
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I only want to know what’s going on between
us, dear water, the distance between us is disappearing
so fast I can’t catch the second of sorrow, dear fire,
the second of lordliness, dear earth, the second of
joy, dear air—everything is a second, but it’s
disappearing so quickly, without any trace.
We are us, I know, and you are me and I am you
and we are our sons and our daughters, we areX
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our parents and oceans, we are winds and suns
and mountains, but where is time, time
is distance, you told me, I know and it’s going,
it’s disappearing now, just because of knowing, or
love? Just because of loneliness? I only want to
know how it’s possible to love you and stay alive.
Stay alive and spend time for emptiness, for living
without understanding your heartbeats, dear earth,
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without understanding your calmness, dear water,
without understanding your secrets, dear fire,
without understanding your speech, dear air.
Distance means emptiness when your loved
one means the fullness of life. Yet I see the lilac
shadow of a tree, please speak to me, my author,
I am the word in silence, speak to me more
and more, and go and go, and—X
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if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your
words, leave that home or town and shake the
dust off your feet…
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April 9, 2019
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The Sea is So Calm Now
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“You are free now from all your fears,” the wave
says, playing around my feet. “And yes, now you
know why a calm sea does not make a skilled sailor.”
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Every time I see the calm sea
I remember voices from my childhood,
I look for a word that was never spoken.
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The sea is calm, like the face of a child after dark night’s
unrest. I love its breathing, the movement of waves, like a
mother’s breath, are so loving that in the past they
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put out the alarm, the storm, the fears of childhood
and now calm some future alarm and fears and storm
off the whole world’s coast. Yes, that was the moment I found
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a word that had been spoken only once, maybe, or was never
spoken at all. All these storms are in me now, that’s
why I’m calm, I am the captain of all calmness, mother.X
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February 27, 2019
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The Answers
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Life needs testimony about love. It teaches us: either you control
your mood, or it gains power over you. And to pain you have to answer,
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to fidelity you have to answer, to braveness you have to answer, and
I have all these answers—to friendship I answered with a smile
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and to fidelity, to pain I answered with silence and tears, to meanness
with indignation, to loneliness with living for others, to abomination
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with disgust, to braveness I answered with my full heart, and it is
and it was and it always will be my guide, my best friend, my God,
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my loved one and my way and my home, my heart is my journey
across the crossroads of human faith and darkness, human faith and
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calmness, across a whole universe of solitude or joy, every answer is
the price I pay for operating out of my automatic images of mind
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which are telling me now: “This is life, and a man cannot prove love, a man can only experience it with his heart.”
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January 15, 2019
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