Category: Read, write, lead!

Hermann Hesse on happiness, writing and how to say ‘yes’ to life

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

herman-hesse

Hermann Hesse’s life and literary quest was always preoccupied with constant search for meaning of life and faith. He was born into a Protestant-Pietist family of missionaries, preachers and theologians, but somehow Christianity didn’t offer him answers he was looking for. Soon, very much influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, he developed his own notion that humanity actually belongs to some kind of Universal truth that goes beyond any religion and metaphysical explanation. In most of his work, especially in his spiritual poetry he always emphasized the importance of living in the now: on letting go and finding contentment within ourselves.

Whenever in doubt, he invites us to look in nature, observe the flow of life that goes around us and how we are part of that life. It is upon us to say yes to life, to affirm that we are part of some eternal life force and intelligence bigger than us; that we need to trust life and ourselves.

He writes:

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

~ Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

Life is not good or bad. It is what it is. If we dislike something it is mirrored part of ourselves that we don’t like.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

When it comes to writing, if it is something we really want to do in life, we will find the way to work for us. Once we recognize that we have that gift to share with world, gift and value of our own vulnerability,  that we accept and admire it with all virtues and flaws – that is real happiness. Words can be seen as our proof of existence and how we use them makes the whole difference.

“You must find your dream, then the way becomes easy. Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object. Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

In the following poem I think that Hesse so vividly and accurately in the same time managed to capture the notion of happiness and why we are all during our lives so allured with it:

Happiness

If luck you chase, you have not grown
enough for happiness to stay,
not even if you get your way.

If, what you lost, you still bemoan,
and grasp at tasks, and dash and dart,
you have not known true peace of heart.

But if no wishes are your own,
and you don’t try to win the game,
and Lady Luck is just a name,

then tides of life won’t reach your breast
and all your strife
and all your soul will rest.

I hope that his thoughts will help you and inspire you in your further creative endevours. You can complement this reading with Mark Strand’s take on creativity, what writing haiku can teach us and little tips on how to develop your own mindfulness practice.

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It takes only 10 minutes (exercise)

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

woodyhayes

While you are studying at a Faculty, many of the courses you encounter (obligatory) you don’t like or you don’t recognize at that particular time you do really need certain knowledge and skills they offer. And on the other hand, there are  subjects you simply adore and you are always excited about.

When you are young and full of energy you simply don’t want to waste your time on something you don’t like when there is bunch of other stuff you’d rather do. So I made a little pact with myself that everyday, at least for 10 minutes I will do seminars and projects that I’m excited about. Every day, consistently! Why I did this and how it helped me? It helped me in two ways:

  1. Since I had to devote my time also to courses I didn’t like that much, by doing what I liked for at least 10 minutes a day, I made sure I wasn’t behind with what I really wanted to learn;
  2. By doing what I liked, the good feeling generated made it easier for me to do things I didn’t like that much.

At the end, I managed to graduate a year before anticipated time.

These principles we can also apply to our creative projects and make ourselves more productive and exited about what we are doing.

Now, here is a little exercise I have for you today:

  1. Make an agreement with yourself that you will work on a project you are passionate about, every day for at least 10 minutes. It can be in the morning, your lunch break or evening – it doesn’t matter. The key word here is consistency.
  2. Decide on which project you will work tomorrow. If you are a writer, choose a poem, story or essay you are excited about and that you are eager to finish. Skip those “I must do this one, but I hate it”! That feeling of resistance only leads to more procrastination and that is something we want to avoid. Choose a project that brings smile on your face and that you simply love.
  3. Tomorrow, at your convenient time, set a timer for 10 – 15 minutes and work on your favorite project. Don’t pay attention to the quality of your work. The progress you make each day while working on what you love will generate such good feelings that it will make much easer for you to jump-start the project you were postponing and avoiding.
  4. When the time’s up, stop! Even if you would like to continue working, stop and leave yourself a reminder where to continue tomorrow.
  5. Tomorrow, repeat your newly established routine.
  6. After a couple of days you might consider prolonging your working time intervals and see how it goes. If it doesn’t and it makes you nervous and worried you won’t have time for things “I must do”, then just stick to those 10 minutes. It’s important for us to have fun while we are creating.
  7. If you skip some of the days, it’s Ok. Continue the next day where you previously stopped.

I hope you find this exercise fun and applicable to your creative routine. By being persistent it can eventually help you enjoy more your creativity and writing.

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How poetry enhances development of explicit organizational knowledge

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

doris-lessing

In this article, I have in depth described how poetry can be closely related to accessing our tacit knowledge, which in our business world can bring us lot of advantage. Tacit knowledge is represented by all our skills that are not only shaped by our education, but mostly through our life conditions, environment, culture, ext. We could say that tacit knowledge is everything undefined, inexplicable, unknown yet perceived knowledge by one person – usually rooted deeply in the subconsciousness and its largely based on any internalized information.

In the paper “Cooking up a storm: Flavoring organizational learning with poetry” author Grisoni L., argues that poetry can go a step further and actually

create a fusion between tangible, rational and explicit knowledge and tacit or implicit knowledge, providing opportunities to access new organizational knowledge; emotional richness, texture and flavored nuance to organizational knowledge and learning.”

In the mentioned paper, poetry is used as a creative research method and as such it contributes to development of new forms of knowledge. Poetry reveals what is hidden, beneath the ordinary organizational behavior, procedures and policies.

The case study for the paper is based on a group of 60 middle and senior managers from a single organization and they were asked to form small groups of three, share their stories and experiences from their working environment. Listeners would capture key words from these stories and together the small group would develop short poems using the haiku poetic form.

Here are some of the presented haikus:

Change risk move frightened

Thought safe, hidden fear revealed

Moved, sparkling sunshine

Ongoing concern – always

People in need, a start

Towards positive change!

Member of team

Develop role, career

Encouraged, valued.

After successful presentation of hauikus, conclusions that emerged are that working with poetry holds the potential to capture emotion and express the un-sayable with passion, truth and intensity. It provides a supportive underpinning to discussions relating to emotions, which form an important part of the organizational learning literature, surfacing and facilitating dialogue about these issues in a way that other processes may not access.

What’s also interesting is that we do create explicit form of knowledge where our skilled performance is  delivered in new ways through social interaction. In this research paper has been shown that poetry is a wonderful medium for doing that. But, how else can poetry help us in business setting? Any thoughts? Please share in the comments below.

Knowledge

Now that I know
That passion warms little
Of flesh in the mold,
And treasure is brittle,
I’ll lie here and learn
How, over their ground,
Trees make a long shadow
And a light sound.
Louise Bogan

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5 ways you can reconnect with your own creativity

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

earl_nightingale

Being creative is not only doing, making stuff or problem solving. Creativity originates from our deepest desires and most sincere aspirations. For me personally, actual act of creating is an act of self-love. It might sound weird to some of you, but if you think more clearly it is true. Any creative expression is an expression of Self in given time and place. The more we show appreciation and kindness towards ourselves, the more creative we become.

Now, I’m not talking about vanity and pretentious, selfish self-love where you neglect and disrespect other people in order to fulfill some personal gains. I’m talking about just being gentle and kind in our thoughts and actions towards ourselves.

When you have problem to connect with your creative side, it’s like pushing away from us the part that needs the most attention; that needs to be understood and nurtured.

Personally when I’m experiencing something like this, usually there is some other underlying cause that distracts me and keeps me from having that intimate encounter with creativity.

There are few things you can do in order to reestablish that connection we all need:

1.Stop criticizing yourself and your work.

As I said, every creative work is a result of our self-expression in given moment and place. Just accept it like that. Once you approve of your own work, your positive changes can start to happen.

2. Stop comparing yourself to others.

You are unique and everything you do is unique. Don’t try to ‘fit in’.You don’t have to belong to any movement, style, group…just be yourself. Work on being better for your own sake, not to be approved by others.

3. Stop sabotaging yourself and start forgiving instead.

You made mistakes in the past. You could’ve done, planned, executed, written, painted, composed, sung, danced, calculated… better, but that’s in the past. You gave your best at the time, considering the understanding, awareness, knowledge that you had and the conditions you were in. Only by letting go we can allow fresh creativity to enter.

4. As you are kind to you mind, be kind to your body.

For long time I didn’t recognize the connection between the foods we eat and how we feel and create. Apparently there is a huge influence of what we are eating on how we are able to perform in any part of our lives. Learn more about your own body, what it needs to feel invigorated, vital and full of energy. Incorporate your favorite movements, walks, dance or exercise.

5. Don’t take everything too seriously.

Now, I’m not saying being reckless or irresponsible. But it’s important to have fun at least in some moments, because by being more joyful we become more open to new ideas, and opportunists.Creativity has that therapeutic quality and once we leave behind all ‘musts and shoulds’, it’s easier to approach our problem differently. And by looking at the world differently,  creativity finds its way towards us – when you least expect it.

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What’s the future of poetry? ~ conclusions from the Belgrade Poetry Festival 2016

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

svetski dan poezije

This year I happened to be in Belgrade while traditional poetry ceremony “World Poetry Day(s) 2016” was taking place. This event has been organized by the Belgrade Cultural Center and it was announced that this year’s festival will be dedicated to the relationship between contemporary poetry and society, and the possibility of cooperation of poets, visual artists, and film and theater authors.

Under the name “Republic of Poetry” festival has demonstrated that poetry has once again become an autonomous symbolic territory within which it is possible to develop creative potentials in the wider field of poetry practice.

The festival hosted many diverse participants from around the world like: Jerome Rothenberg, Gerhard Falkner, Maria Grazia Kalandrone, Jaka Zeleznikar, Ursula Kiesling and many others.

Through performances and debates, festival has proven that poetry hasn’t been immune to the phenomenon of globalization and that it is transforming poetry extensively in comparison to previous decades. One of the main conclusions of the festival is that poetry is turning again to experiment, revitalizing thus historical avant garde and neo-avant garde. Poets and artists do have a need for more complex response to  the events we are all exposed to and in order to share their experiences they strive to multimedia expressions combining different resources. As a result, the prevailing poetic practices are transforming under this occurrence. Poets are incorporating some structural elements of other art forms (music, visual arts, theater and dance) while erasing the visible bounders among artistic expressions. Some new literary phenomena are emerging, such as new media poem, which is being created with help of new technologies. Also, the transnational poetic practice can be seen today as one of those emancipatory practices, even though is on the margins of the cultural scene.

Part of festival program was performed on some unconventional locations in Belgrade like clubs, city streets and public transport – with aim to promote more poetry among citizens.

Great focus has been also on discussions about poetry like it’s relations to politics and aesthetics and where is the place of feminism and women’s voices in poetry.

This festival as it tried to answer some questions, it has also opened many new discussions that need to be addressed in the future.

What are your thoughts on future of poetry?

In the Silver Mines

Life in the silver mines nears its end
and soon the time will come
for everyone to take responsibility
for what they didn’t say
the people passing by
touched my cotton shirts
swinging on the line
and my window smashed a thousand times
and Franz Kafka
who sat next to me
in the classroom overlooking the playground
I remember him each time
I fall drunk upon a feather pillow
and put my arms around the fields of grain
swaying in the wind
silently and soundlessly
I will escape people one day
into the forest
that will never become a flooring mill
into the sky
sending rain for eyelashes stuck shut

Zvonko Karanovic

 

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Conquer your next creative adventure in 5 easy steps

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

Erich-Fromm

If you have many diverse interests like me, you know how is sometimes hard to stick just to one thing you are doing and it’s so easy to get distracted when something new or more attractive appears. There are certain practices you can employ in order to stay on track with your project: meaning you will finish your project – not postpone it for “some better days”.

Step 1: Sign a ‘contract’ with yourself

First what you want to do is to make a pact with your self that you will try to follow your creative endeavor till the end. You might not be satisfied with the results, but everything we do has a room for improvement so we want to step back from unreachable perfectionism that doesn’t serve us and give our best to finish the project. Try to think from the end, what is it that you would like to achieve? Think also of your reasons for doing this project – you can even write them down and put them where you will read them often as a reminder. They will give you inspiration to deliver your project on time and fuel your passion along the way.

Step 2: Give your project a place to live and breathe

As you need time, you need space where you can get comfy and cozy while enjoying your creativity. It’s of great importance to stage your environment for creativity and allow it to freely come to you, in undisturbed and relaxed space. By secluding that little corner where you can work, it is going to be much easier for you to continue your work, follow up where you previously stopped if you don’t have to move your books, ketches or tools in order to do  something else. Your project needs place where to live, breathe and be nourished.

Step 3: Define your achievable goals

Here, you want according to your busy life and routine to set some realistic goals, like time frame in which you would like to finish the project; some milestones maybe you would like to achieve. Keep in mind that as you begin to work, like for example on your new novel, you probably won’t be delighted with your first draft – there will be many trials and errors before you tap into  your creative flow and you become satisfied with the end result.

Step 4: Give your project a structure

This is highly linked to a previous step – if your creative adventure is in writing, try to write a synopsis of that initial idea, give it some structure that you can refine along the way and adapt as new ideas and developments come into play. Having that line you want to follow will make sure you don’t drift away from initial idea and get lost in your own creativity.

Step 5: Try to avoid other people mistakes

As you prepare for work, my final advice is to research you creative topic and see what other people have done or are doing. Not because something similar already exists, but we can avoid many pitfalls from gaining wisdom from other people experiences; something may or may not work for us – as long as we are informed and gather information is going to be much easier to make some choices and decisions when it comes to our creative projects.

The last thing I can say is: enjoy creating 🙂

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7 tips for improving your creative writing skills

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Read, write, lead!, Writer's creative bites

budington kelland

As a writer, you don’t want to be just good or average. You want to be better; you want to improve your skills and you want to have your own recognizable style. Well, all that doesn’t happen overnight. It takes courage, perseverance, consistency in your writing attempts – no matter the rejections, lack of time or inspiration. Your writing can improve with practice and I will share here some tips you might find helpful:

1.Don’t find time – make time for your writing

As I said in the above introductory paragraph, it’s of great importance that you schedule regular time for your creativity, every day. When you have an idea, jot it down – don’t ignore it and let it flourish on your paper. You never know when inspiration will strike, so be prepared with little notebook by your side.

2. Don’t fear rejection

Show the world your creative power – maybe through blog, writing platforms or even through writing journals and open competitions. It’s a great way to practice your writing, refine your own style and maybe your story, poem, article gets published and recognized by editors – you don’t have anything to lose.

3.Join the community

There are many forums and other forms of networks where you can practice along with other fellow writers as response to different topics and prompts. It’s a great opportunity to get feedback about your writing and share your struggles and accomplishments.

4. Challenge yourself

As a poet you might try short story writing. It will provoke your thinking, channel your ideas in different directions. The more you step out of your comfort zone, the more your writing will mature and grow.

5.Read a lot; and then read some more!

Reading is a prerequisite to any good writing. It will not only enrich your vocabulary, but it will give you confidence that you can write too; that you can improve your writing skills and that there is experience and emotion residing inside of you, a story that needs to be told and shared with the world.

6.Feed your soul with some art

Visit museums, exhibitions, go to concerts and listen to music; dance and sing – enjoy other expressions of creativity as it can further inspire your writing. Diverse emotions that come from different senses can generate a feeling that we are creative beings and sometimes that is all you need for writing ideas to spark and come forth into your consciousnesses.

7.Don’t try to invent hot water – every time!

What I mean by this is that many writers are afraid that they are not original enough; that something similar already exists, that every story and poem is already written and told. But I want to remind you that you are unique person with unique points of view and unique experiences. No one can steal and copy that. As long as you are true to yourself it will be reflected in your writing.

How do you work on improving your writing? Please share your experiences in the comments below.

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Are you an introvert? Poetry can help you access your inner treasures

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

hawking

I presume I’ve always been an introvert. And when I was younger I looked at that as a drawback, a negative side. For many years I’ve silently longed to be one of those cool kids that easily steal affection, that with just small gesture or smile so quickly make new friends and become leaders of ‘ the pack’.

I was kind of opposite of all that: only having few friends at the time, never liked to talk about myself – instead I’ve become an ideal ‘shoulder for crying’. As a highly individualistic, books were my favorite company and I never had a problem to spend time alone, with myself. Also, as an introvert I’m somehow on the constant quest for deeper meanings, understandings and knowing. As a motivation, that can be a great advantage in any research profession for example, but somewhere along the way in the recent years, I’ve noticed my introvert side has even grown. That is something I didn’t expect to happen in my late thirties, but it did. And here is where poetry helped me a lot: to express my feelings, thoughts and experiences which I’m not comfortable to share in classical mundane communication.

Poetry can be that articulate tool that gives the voice to those hidden parts of us: sensitive, beautiful, vulnerable, brave, but weak, dark and frightening in the same time. Connection to poetry is always personal and deep that goes to the farthest roots of our being and helps us recognize, accept and communicate who we are: who we truly are. To anyone who is struggling with finding direction in life, self doubt and self acceptance, poetry can help reveal those hidden treasures, strengths that moves us forward; helps us discover our place in the world. In your writing and reading poetry you can find intimacy you might be lacking in an extroverted and often shallow world we are living in.

Having poetry in my life have certainly helped me to better communicate my needs and feelings and generally to cope with pressures of the fast paced world. If you do recognize yourself to be an introvert, introducing more poetry into your life can bring that sensation of nourished soul, that we are taking care of us; that we can find home where ever we are.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,
and there the grass grows soft and white,
and there the sun burns crimson bright,
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight
to cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
and the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go
to the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends. 

Shel Silverstein

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Why people don’t like poetry?

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

shelley

This essay is inspired by some of the recent comments in this post. And it made me think: why  people really don’t like poetry? What is it that keeps them away from maybe not writing, but from reading some really exquisite pieces by poets from all around the world?

The usual answer is something like “Poetry is boring”, “I don’t understand it”, “It’s a waste of time”. So I wanted to explore this topic a bit further.

If we look more deeply around us, we can notice that people have very little time to appreciate art in general. This fast paced, consumer oriented society has trained us to want everything now and here. An instant satisfaction, an instant thrill, an instant experience: not allowing our biological system to perceive with all its senses; truly absorb our emotions and simply feel.

Life usually demands of us high level of practicality, logical and factual thinking in order for us to be functional and productive on a day to day basis. It’s very noticeable in how we are doing business and science. But where are the boundaries? Have we lost our human touch? In our lives when everything is so exact and explicit we have erased some of the basic human traits: ability to feel and empathize. We cannot treat our most intimate relationships, families and ourselves like we are on a business meeting and signing a business contract.

And there is this soft spot where poetry likes to ‘poke’ you. It demands something different from you. It demands your whole being to respond: if you try logically to analyze a poem, it will take you nowhere; if you search for shortcuts, you will be lost; if you need answers, probably you will be disappointed.

A poem is a journey that allows you to escape from typical factual thinking and forces you to question everything: instead of searching for answers on the outside, you need to look deep inside of you.

There lies the true value of poetry – especially for business leaders, as it can be seen as an antidote to typical business interpretations:

  • poem is associative rather than factual thinking;
  • poem enforces abstract thinking in comparison to deductive thinking.

Like Clare Morgan implies in “What poetry brings to business”:

reading poetry generates conceptual spaces that maybe different from the spaces usually approached in business and life in general.

As poetry is letting yourself to get familiar with the unknown – it shouldn’t instill fear of ambiguity and uncertainty, but rather to be seen as a vehicle, attractive mystical longing that can transcend us across those conceptual spaces and offer different modes of interpretation: a sure way to enrich our creativity in all aspects of our lives.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins

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Can poetry help us resolve social issues?

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!, Writer's creative bites

hirschfeild

When I first started this blog, my intention was to explore the benefits that poetry can bring to the world of business; how can we become better in what we do, by improving our creativity, leadership skills, cognitive and strategic thinking, communication, tacit knowledge and ext. With time, blog evolved into something much more and deeper and on a few occasions I’ve also wrote about the transformative power of poetry.

Recently, I came a cross an article, an interview with poet Jane Hirshfield where she shares her view on how poetry can help us move forward in dealing with even bigger social problems:

I think we know the world needs changing. Things are going awry left and right. I firmly believe that in our very practical, technological, and scientific age, the values of all the arts, but of poetry in particular, are necessary for moving the world forward. I’m talking about things like compassion, empathy, permeability, interconnection, and the recognition of how important it is to allow uncertainty in our lives.

One of the current great problems in the world is fundamentalism of every kind – political, spiritual — and poetry is an antidote to fundamentalism. Poetry is about the clarities that you find when you don’t simplify. They’re about complexity, nuance, subtlety. Poems also create larger fields of possibilities. The imagination is limitless, so even when a person is confronted with an unchangeable outer circumstance, one thing poems give you is there is always a changeability, a malleability, of inner circumstance. That’s the beginning of freedom.

With these beautiful words, I think she captured the true essence of poetry; its purpose and reason for existence: every poem is like taking a journey to a different world where everything is possible and we can truly chose our experiences and taste liberation in every sense.

In her wonderful book “Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World.” Jane Hirshfield, further explores hidden strength that poetry holds and especially focuses on the beauty of uncertainty, not knowing everything – just enjoying to be.

And today, I invite you when you write, at least for a minute stop asking yourself questions on how, where, why – liberate yourself from any false predicaments and just be present, sink into your own being and feel your inner world; connect with your own subtle energies, where self-acceptance and self-trust takes place – you might be surprised how your reality change.

By allowing ourselves to transform our inner world, we are transforming the world around us as well.

Some stories last many centuries,
others only a moment.
All alter over that lifetime like beach-glass,
grow distant and more beautiful with salt.

Yet even today, to look at a tree
and ask the story Who are you? is to be transformed.

There is a stage in us where each being, each thing, is a mirror.

Then the bees of self pour from the hive-door,
ravenous to enter the sweetness of flowering nettles and thistle.

Next comes the ringing a stone or violin or empty bucket
gives off – 
the immeasurable’s continuous singing,
before it goes back into story and feeling.

In Borneo, there are palm trees that walk on their high roots.
Slowly, with effort, they lift one leg then another.

I would like to join that stilted transmigration,
to feel my own skin vertical as theirs:
an ant-road, a highway for beetles.

I would like not minding, whatever travels my heart.
To follow it all the way into leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch,
and then keep walking, unimaginably further. 

Jane Hirshfield

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