Tag Archives: wisdom

We believed in everything.

poetry, , ,

THE LAMP

I write in order to comprehend not to express myself
I don’t grasp anything I’m not ashamed to admit it
sharing this not knowing with a maple leaf
So I turn with questions to words wiser than myself
to things that will endure long after us
I wait to gain wisdom from chance
I expect sense from silence
Perhaps something will suddenly happen
and pulse with hidden truth
like the spirit of the flame in the oil lamp
under which we bowed our heads
when we were very young
and grandmas crossed the bread with a knife
and we believed in everything
So now I yearn for nothing so much
as for that faith

-Anna Kamieńska

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Translated from Polish by Grażyna Drabik and David Carson

That cookie is in another jar.

poetry, reality, , ,

SMART COOKIE

(after Wallace Stevens)

The fortune that you seek is in another cookie,
was my fortune. So I’ll be equally frank—the wisdom
that you covet is in another poem. The life that you desire
is in a different universe. The cookie you are craving
is in another jar. The jar is buried somewhere in Tennessee.
Don’t even think of searching for it. If you found that jar,
everything would go kerflooey for a thousand miles around.
It is the jar of your fate in an alternate reality. Don’t even
think of living that life. Don’t even think of eating that cookie.
Be a smart cookie—eat what’s on your plate, not in some jar
in Tennessee. That’s my wisdom for today, though I know
it’s not what you were looking for.

-Richard Schiffman

 

He will roll in their nets and sleep.

humanity, quotes, , , , , ,

“His soul will never starve for exploits or excitements who is wise enough to be made a fool of. He will make himself happy in the traps that have been laid for him; he will roll in their nets and sleep. All doors will fly open to him who has a mildness more defiant than mere courage… [He] will always be ‘taken in.’ To be taken in everywhere is to see the inside of everything. It is the hospitality of circumstance. With torches and trumpets, like a guest, the greenhorn is taken in by Life. And the sceptic is cast out by it.”

G.K. Chesterton, in Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens