Thursday, March 1, 2012

Who Speaks


(Sunrise by J. M. W. Turner, 1775-1851, English Romantic “painter of light,” watercolorist, and printmaker)

This month, we continue with poetry that can lead us to moments of quiet contemplation.

Today’s verse is a song by Tree-Leaf Woman, one of the poets whose works are preserved in a collection of poems by Tibetan Buddhist women from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. It was found in Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, edited by Jane Hirshfield.

Who speaks the sound of an echo?
Who paints the image in a mirror?
Where are the spectacles in a dream?
Nowhere at all — that’s the nature of the mind!
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3 comments:

  1. Thomas DMarch 1, 2012 at 7:34 AM

    I just ordered the Hirshfield anthology from my library!

    ReplyDelete
  2. maria horvathMarch 1, 2012 at 9:55 AM

    Dylan,

    When you're at the library, check out another book that is like a companion to the Hirshfield collection:

    Invincible Spirits: A Thousand Years of Women's Spiritual Writings, compiled by Felicity Leng (2006)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thomas DMarch 1, 2012 at 12:41 PM

    Thanks! Will do!

    ReplyDelete

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