The past

November 9, the sofa

Let the words be the focus of a meditation.

Be comfortable, take a few easy breaths and then let yourself absorb the words, allowing whatever feelings and images appear and disappear.

The Past

~ Louise Glück

Small light in the sky appearing

suddenly between

two pine boughs, their fine needles

now etched onto the radiant surface

and above this

high, feathery heaven—

Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine,

most intense when the wind blows through it

and the sound it makes equally strange,

like the sound of the wind in a movie—

Shadows moving. The ropes

making the sound they make. What you hear now

will be the sound of the nightingale, chordata,

the male bird courting the female—

The ropes shift. The hammock

sways in the wind, tied

firmly between two pine trees.

Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine.

It is my mother’s voice you hear

or is it only the sound the trees make

when the air passes through them

because what sound would it make,

passing through nothing?

—

~ From Faithful and Virtuous Night

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We continue with the theme of Pain Myths today.