What if someone said to an embryo in the womb,
“Outside of your world of black nothing
is a miraculously ordered universe;
a vast Earth covered with tasty food;
mountains, oceans and plains,
fragrant orchards and fields full of crops;
a luminous sky beyond your reach,
with a sun, moonbeams, and uncountable stars;
and there are winds from south, north and west,
and gardens replete with sweet flowers
like a banquet at a wedding feast.
The wonders of this world are beyond description.
What are you doing living in a dark prison,
Drinking blood through that narrow tube?”
But the womb- world is all an embryo knows
And it would not be particularly impressed
By such amazing tales, saying dismissively:
“You’re crazy. That is all a deluded fantasy.”
One day you will look back and laugh at yourself.
You’ll say, “ I can’t believe I was so asleep!
How did I ever forget the truth?
How ridiculous to believe that sadness and sickness
Are anything other than bad dreams.”
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I am so small I can barely be seen,
How can this great love be inside me?
Look at your eyes, they are small,
But they see enormous things.
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No better love than love with no object,
No more satisfying work than work with no purpose.
If you could give up tricks and cleverness,
That would be the cleverest trick!
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In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.
