Live 1,000 lives by picture

There is so much to say. I want to take the time to formulate an adequate response to all these events swirling around me. It is the last day of August. I still have so much to do. A few errands to run momentarily trucates the entry- turns it into a brief taster for things to come. So much of what is here is devoted to my perception of the world. Things and Events that interest me. My position in all of this is that of the critic, the artist who seeks to enrich lives by commenting on them, to shape his own life by correcting it at every turn. It is so easy to think that everything is in decline from what we produce culturally and political to, on a more fundamental level, the manner in which we treat other human beings. There needs to be a happy medium between self-interest and concern for others. I have received support from close friends in recent weeks.

My friend Tom recommended this poem:

Wait
--Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

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My friend Khadijah sent me this poem (bracketed by an excerpt of our chat):
Khadijah: that sounds like blaming her not yrself
...
3:33 PM shitty thing is when things work we feel good about ourselves when they fail we feel like shit and then time passes and we realize there's no other way it could've gone down...
chemistry
timing
issues
shit
life shit!
me: yeah
3:34 PM Khadijah: but that maybe if one or both of you can work through whatever is creating the walls, if there's something retrievable, you'll retrieve it.
but if not,
i have a poem for you.
me: i feel like she's moving on with her life and i'm standing still
or not
hmmm
3:35 PM she still really wants to be friends

Khadijah:

A Community of the Spirit

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street,
and "being" the noise.
Drink "all" your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.
You moan, "She left me." "He left me."
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love "everywhere?"
3:36 PM You moan, "She left me." "He left me."
Twenty more will come.
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

3:37 PM me: wow thanks
Khadijah: that's rumi
13th cen
sufi poet

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Both response, in their own ways are quite apt, I am thankful to have such good friends.