Rilke

I. We are right at the start, do you see.

As though before everything. With

a thousand and one dreams behind us and

no act.

II I can imagine no knowledge holier

than this:

that you must become a beginner.

Someone who writes the first word after a 

centuries-long

dash. 

Rainer Maria Rilke 
From Notes on the Melody of Things

Jane Hirshfield

Rebus

You work with what you are given,
the red clay of grief,
the black clay of stubbornness going on after.
Clay that tastes of care or carelessness,
clay that smells of the bottoms of rivers or dust.

Each thought is a life you have lived or failed to live,
each word is a dish you have eaten or left on the table.
There are honeys so bitter
no one would willingly choose to take them.
The clay takes them: honey of weariness, honey of vanity,
honey of cruelty, fear.

This rebus - slip and stubbornness,
bottom of river, my own consumed life -
when will I learn to read it
plainly, slowly, uncolored by hope or desire?
Not to understand it, only to see.

As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty,
we become our choices.
Each yes, each no continues,
this one a ladder, that one an anvil or cup.

The ladder leans into its darkness.
The anvil leans into its silence.
The cup sits empty.

How can I enter this question the clay has asked?

 Jane Hirshfield, “Rebus” from Given Sugar, Given Salt Harper Collins 2001

Enheduanna

Temple Hymn 26
The Zabalam Temple Of Inanna

O house   wrapped in beams of light
wearing shining stone jewels   wakening great awe

sanctuary of pure Inanna
    (where) divine powers the true me spread wide

    Zabalam
               shrine of the shining mountain
    shrine that welcomes the morning light
    she makes resound with desire

the Holy Woman grounds your hallowed chamber
    with desire

    your queen  Inanna of the sheepfold
    that singular woman
    the unique one

who speaks hateful words to the wicked
    who moves among the bright shining things
    who goes against rebel lands

and at twilight makes the firmament beautiful
    all on her own

    great daughter of Suen
    pure Inanna

O house of Zabalam
    has built this house on your radiant site
    and placed her seat upon your dais.

Enheduanna (2285-2250) was an Akkadian/Sumerian poet, high priestess of the main temple of Ur and daughter of Sargon the Great. She was also the first recorded author: not female author, the first recorded author in history. She created the genres, patterns and paradigms for poetry, psalms and prayers that have been used for millennia echoing through Homer, the Bible, church liturgies and hymns.

The photo is a detail of my work, Creator Spirit.