Friday, December 30, 2011

Poems, Paintings, Cantatas, Prayers, Sculptures, Photographs, Symphonies, Axioms, Prophecies, Analects, Proverbs....

from Parabola:

ARCS


Murasaki shown writing at her desk at Ishiyama-dera inspired by the Moon, ukiyo-e by Suzuki Harunobu, c. 1767

Murasaki shown writing at her desk at Ishiyama-dera inspired by the Moon, ukiyo-e by Suzuki Harunobu, c. 1767





‎"Although the wind

blows terribly here,

the moonlight also leaks

between the roof planks

of this ruined house."



—Murasaki Shikibu







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‘The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come’ Illustration from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843

William Blake, "The Night of Peace," 1815





“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year.”



—Charles Dickens







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Ikko Narahara, from the series ‘Where Time has Stopped’, Venezia, 1964

Ikko Narahara, from the series ‘Where Time has Stopped," Venezia, 1964



“Life may be brimming over with experience, but somewhere, deep inside, all of us carry a vast and fruitful lonliness wherever we go. And sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes."



—Etty Hillesum "An Interrupted Life," p. 87







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John Florea, "Ringing Bell During the Bean Throwing Festival on New Years Eve," Photographic Print - 12 x 16 in

John Florea, Ringing Bell During the Bean Throwing Festival on New Years Eve. Photographic Print - 12 x 16 in.



Japan



Today I pass the time reading

a favorite haiku,

saying the few words over and over.



It feels like eating

the same small, perfect grape

again and again.



I walk through the house reciting it

and leave its letters falling

through the air of every room.



I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.

I say it in front of a painting of the sea.

I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.



I listen to myself saying it,

then I say it without listening,

then I hear it without saying it.



And when the dog looks up at me,

I kneel down on the floor

and whisper it into each of his long white ears.



It's the one about the one-ton temple bell

with the moth sleeping on its surface,



and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating

pressure of the moth

on the surface of the iron bell.



When I say it at the window,

the bell is the world

and I am the moth resting there.



When I say it at the mirror,

I am the heavy bell

and the moth is life with its papery wings.



And later, when I say it to you in the dark,

you are the bell,

and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,



and the moth has flown

from its line

and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.



—Billy Collins from Sailing Alone Around the Room with thanks to Ox-Herding.





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