Saul Williams - She

"i have come to tell you that i have come. on the way, i noted women transfixed by the light coming from their centers. their heads are bowed. they have learned that if you tilt your neck to the slightest degree and hold your head just so you can look into the lost worlds. they are there retrieving their young from the clutches of negligent daycare. they have come to care for the night. many of them are glowing brighter than the moon herself. thank the heavens she is not jealous in her luminescence, for i have seen many women glowing beyond the intensity of the moon and thought that perhaps the night had mirrored itself in the wake of this glorious occasion: our communion. yes, i have come. i have had a safe journey, although my fears had mounted against me. there were many mountains of my own making and valleys of days without vision."

Saul Williams ~ from the book She

Neruda

THE HEAVENLY POETS
Pablo Neruda

What have you done
you intellectualists?
you mystifiers?
you false existentialist sorcerers?
you surrealistic poppies shining on a tomb?
you pale grubs in the capitalist cheese?
What did you do
about the kingdom of anguish?
about this dark human being
kicked into submission?
about this head
submerged in manure?
about this essence
of harsh, trampled lives?
You didn't do anything but escape
you sold piles of debris
you looked for heavenly hairs
cowardly plants, broken fingernails
"pure beauty" "magic".
Your works were those of poor frightened folk
trying to keep your eyes from looking
trying to protect their delicate pupils
so you could make for your living
a plate of dirty scraps
which the masters flung to you.
Without seeing that the stones are in agony,
without defending, without conquering,
blinder than the wreaths
in the cemetery when the rain
falls on the motionless
rotten flowers on the tomb.

spring

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meaness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain 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 whomever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Beloved Persian Poet

optical delusion

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein