There is no war
that I am waging
no opponent
nothing advancing
no drums
no trumpeter
I am alone here
whirling
across the dark
towards the moon
around it
and away
I am suspended
afloat flying
spinning planets
drift between
the tendril
ends of me
I am alone here
listening
to the sigh
of my own
breath
play me
spherical and
sublime
I am alone
and I am everywhere
there is no war
that I am waging
WONDER
If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.
George Eliot
I LIVE IN HAZARD
I live in hazard and infinity. The cosmos stretches around me, meadow on meadow of galaxies, reach on reach of dark space, steppes of stars, oceanic darkness and light. There is no amenable god in it, no particular concern or particular mercy. Yet everywhere I see a living balance, a rippling of tension, an enormous yet mysterious simplicity, an endless breathing of light. And I comprehend that being is understanding that I must exist in hazard but that the whole is not in hazard. Seeing and knowing this is being conscious; accepting it is being human.
John Fowles, Aristos
TO LOVE
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
Arundhati Roy