Galway Kinnell reads Paul Celan



I love this!

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Today I will try to apply for another job. Every day I hope to apply to a few jobs now besides the days that I grade final papers. That's the plan. I am hoping to get a teaching job but am applying for some other things as well. C says to let the opportunities tell me where to go, what to do. S used to say that the universe has a way of taking care of things, where as P says, no, things aren't always taken care of, but we must survive them non-the-less. J used to say, nothing stays the same and the one thing we can count on is change. Some of us are pragmatic, logical, reasonable, and others of us have some sense of hope in the large vastness of the universe, but people do suffer, and sometimes people of faith get on my nerves for this reason alone. The belief that one suffers due to a lack of faith is bothersome. But I am in the end a person that has faith that things will turn out okay. They always do. I am the person who seems locked in a room, but there is always at the end, a small window I climb through.

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Earth, river, mountain:
snowflakes melt in air.
How could I have doubted?
Where's north? south? east? west?

-- Dengai (c. 1127-1279)

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Not last night,
not this morning;
melon flowers bloomed.

--Basho (1664-1694)

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In this world of dreams,
drifting off still more;
and once again speaking
and dreaming of dreams.
Just let it be.

-- Ryokan (1757-1831)

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In winter
the seven stars
walk upon a crystal forest.

--Soen Nakagawa (1907-1984)


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The above koans are from ZEN INSPIRATION by Miriam Levering