“Clair de lune” (Moonlight)

Suite bergamasque, Third movement by Claude Debussy

Clair de lune (French Poem)
by: Paul Verlaine

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres
Translated by: Gibran

Your soul, a landscape of choice made
Where charming masquerading dancers parade,
Playing the lute as they promenade ecstatic,
Sad beneath disguises fantastic.

While singing a minor key tune
Of vanquishing love and a life opportune,
They are incredulous of their own boon,
As their song blends with light of the moon.

From that light of the moon, happiness flees,
While the birds sleep dreaming in the trees,
It bathes sobbing fountains inconsolable,
While svelte water streams among statues of marble.

A Universe in a Glass of Water

Were a glass of water to represent
State of perfected attainment,
    It would not be perfected,
If not the whole of it, 
    including every drop of water,
    were part.

And so the whole and its parts
Can be considered perfected. 

“… without exception, all phenomena are empty of substantial self-existence and do not exist independently…”

Prajnaparamita

Significance of Insignificance.

Image of Earth below rings of Saturn, captured by Cassini space probe
The insignificance  of significance,
    Incredibly we can gaze from the Vantage of a distant planet,
    Upon our homeward  in marvel,
And yet collectively not strive to preserve it,
That is the greater wonder. 

May we one day appreciate  significance of insignificance.

Eden Lost

How unfortunate to think
Eden forbidden and mythic. 

For any spot on Earthly sphere, 
    Not spoiled nor exploited
    by industries’ grinding gear,
        And greed’s insatiable 
        Need to exploit for gain
        Again and again,
Is Eden paradisic. 

What is this planet  Earth,
If not  a paradise in the vastness
Of empty spacial dearth.  

Mother’s Love

Parvati, Mother Goddess and wife of Sivah, with her infant son Ganesha. Unknown artist.
To her offspring
    the goddess 
perpetually speaks. 

Her voice realized 
    by those  who
Wisdom  seek. 

In your own words.  
her voice can be heard. 

Of the  profound mystery,
It is she who holds the key. 

Ode of Orphee

Orpheus and Eurydice by Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein (1806)
Profess how I long,
    Through metered song 
    To rhythmic tick and every tock
    Of celestial cosmic clock,
        That counts by years,
   A  turning golden gear,
For thy scared kiss,
    Beloved, Eurydice,
        Veiled by chimeric myst 
        Of the depths of hell,
        Where twice you fell. 

Forever together in heart, 
Ever in temporal plane apart. 

In a web of greed, hate and illusion.

Reflections during a 
summer solstice…

Content in the realization 
that the declination
of my Earthly Sol 
now travels north, 
toward  final winter’s
hibernation.
 
To what point oratory 
hyperbole 
and grandiloquence bombast? 
Magniloquence verbosity 
with pomposity elocution?

Eloquence  replaced 
with rant and discourse, 
and oration displaced by 
balderdash fustian frustration. 

Waxing exclusive 
warring tribes, 
and inkish snide 
eclipsing waning 
inclusive 
benevolent 
compassion. 

You know not me,
nor I any more 
learned of you. 
Where does 
humanity hide?