I take you as a star and as a trap
as a stone to unbalance the scale,
as a blind judge & hole & path,
as a cross, arrow and rose;
I take myself as a carrier of themes,
a host.
All that’s personal soon rots;
it must be kept in ice, or cooked.
The world is everything that’s the case,
yet authenticity is for the faithful
to the ambiguity of experience.
“Go, go, go,” said the bird: “humans
cannot bear much reality!”
Today my body is in eclipse.
Was it wrong just to be born?
how can I believe or trust
this burning thing ─── this heart?
The lamb brought for sacrifice
ate up all the leaf brought for decorations;
I’ve never heard of a crime
I couldn’t imagine committing myself.
I’ll give you my word, lest I will try,
lords o lords of the meeting rivers,
never, ever to be born again.
The rich may build temples and shrines;
What shall I,
a woman owning not even
this room, do?
My legs will be pillars: I walk;
the womb
a shrine – over the head a dome.
Listen now,
lords all of the meeting rivers;
all things standing will fall one day
but the moving ever shall stay.
As above, so below? Non solo…
As it is here, so is it elsewhere:
pay constant attention to the seed.
Keep your back straight until you feel no body;
cross the courtyard where your people can’t see you.
Verum sine mendacio, certum,
et verissimum.]
Your own measure is a good measure; attention, the seed.
Spill the fourth state in the others like oil into water:
the very existence of the body becomes a wow;
the universe is now an aggregate of its powers.
When you are separate no more, creation can take place.
Here’s a door. It carries you sevenfold hundred rooms further, or so it seems.
