COMMENTARY ON A SUNLIGHT SUTRA
All language
Is a commentary on the
Nature of silence.
All movement,
A desire
To return to stillness.
(In the still, clear cold of almost dawn, the phurba of a cock pheasant’s call melts divisions, ripples out air to the small, bright horizon.)
Time is dead,
Slain by measurement
And subdivision.
Space
Stutters directionless.
Holding too close to sense, we have turned senseless.
Grasping the meaning too fast, we make mockery of Mind.
We have huddled and gathered in
By enslaving and subduing.
We run from paradox, who are maintained
By its pretty dance.
( upon the water a million suns corruscate. They are not there. There is no movement, except the edge of one, and the edge of other.)
Let me say this in another way, let me translate, let me interpret. I shall press out, express, and it shall all run: the juice of, the wine of, the seed of, flow out gushing to water still roots.
The stupid, placid ones
( those who uphold all motion),
The silent, remaining ones
( they who found and maintain),
The unentertaining, unremarkable ones
( they who tie the fabric of everything),
The ones who do not require victory,
Who do not mock the broken,
Who do not sweep away unmitigated failure,
Who do not defile the future,
Who do not despise the past,
Who appear to be voiceless,
Lacking argument, with blank, bright stares: the green, the feathered, the soft-pawed, the disinherited, the awkward, the displaced. All these, all these: eloquent, an ornament and a recompense.
(On the blank tree
This crow
Mouths a call
The wind disguises.
A scattering of runes from Odin’s spear. No fuss in this universe as the sun flips over, turns to face jaded prophecy, a certain arrogant science, a philosophy of endings.)
Now it settles and fades,
Now it whispers subdued,
Explaining nothing.
It has found its place,
Existing, flung together,
Til its release
In deeper silence.
—-
“The Sunlight Sutras” are a collection of aphorisms and mnemonics I published recently as a little, as it were, unilluminated manuscript. Things fed to me by the world, regurgitated, a green vision blurred. ( if interested head to the Blurb bookshop ( http://blurb.com ) and check out the first 15 pages….). This dream stream inspired by one or two sutras, versions and elaborations of which begin the piece off.
—–
simonhlilly 
Llym awel. Verse 5 improvisations.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged action, ancient Welsh verse, art, block print design, commentary, improvisations, landscape, peace, Poetry, snow, the world, Wales, war, Welsh language, Winter on February 11, 2015| 4 Comments »
LLYM AWEL verse 5 Improvisations.
Ottid eiry, guin y cnes;
Nid a kedwir oè neges;
Oer llinneu, eu llyu heb tes.
“Falls the snow, a white covering;
Warriors shun their tasks.
Cold are the lakes, their colour without warmth.”
Each line ends with a long hissing sibilance, the fall of snow, the melt as cold hits warm. The slightly longer last line elaborates the terse imagery and is a lack, draining motion and warmth from the reader’s mind.
The description of ‘warriors’ could be ironic. How strong and brave are they really, who refuse to go out in the snow? Or, in another view, the snow can vanquish even the bold warrior with its implacable purpose.
—
So falls and falls the snow.
White covers all, all senses white.
No colour for the sight,
No sound nor note to the ear,
All feeling numbed, no warmth here for heart.
The stalwart shrink, the warriors shirk,
The brave turn away, tasks undone.
Huddled small to the fire, faces inward.
For the lakes stretch vast and cold.
Their colour is death and grey pallor,
A wan weight the white drift sinks to.
Extirpated, extinguished, cold on cold.
Drained is the heat of war,
We are rendered aimless,
Lost to thoughtless staring peace.
We fall to not doing,
A sin for man whose fuse
Runs short and hot.
Severed, spun back, reeled in.
Conquered by an easy drift
And silent fall –
A world unbudged,
Resolute in is.
A cold refusal.
A cold covering.
—
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