Rest in peace.
Friday, May 15, 2026
making the case for clarity (hufnaan, taasoo ka dhigaysa kiiska mid cad oo la fahmi karo)
For prison today, the Somali poet Hadraawi:
Let me tell the whole truth,put into wordsthe essence of our charge:while hunger grips like a strong youth,is impregnable as a sturdy wall,and those who grab and gather wealth,who love to lick their lips at it –while this type is springing up all over,doers of ill who demand the best,hoarding all there is;while the poor suffer,are pushed over, helpless,and everyone is divided into high or low,don’t hope that tribalismwill fade and wither:the facts oppose you.Anyone who wants this lifeto be serene,to have savour and feel sound,there is a path to follow:people, you prosperas one unit, as you share inyour shouldering of the burden –that’s the only balm.If it weakens in one wingthen its whole end is woe.Is there any advice better than this,any further examples you needbeyond this ample explanation,or do you have some countering case?
--excerpt from Daalacan (Clarity), ORIGINAL POEM BY Somali poet Maxamed Ibraahin Warsame ‘Hadraawi’ (1943-2022), TRANSLATED BY Said Jama Hussein (1979-80) https://www.poetrytranslation.org/poem/clarity/#translated-poem
also, cf: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/abs/ali-mumin-ahad-somali-oral-poetry-and-the-failed-shecamel-nation-state-a-critical-discourse-analysis-of-the-deelley-poetry-debate-19791980-society-and-politics-in-africa-24-306-pp-new-york-peter-lang-2015-7145-isbn-978-1-4331-2515-7/4CF26E587C4C301608DAF76B08071AE4
Clarity.
In a hard time, in a dark time, one can attempt clarity.
Or do you have some countering case?
Thursday, May 14, 2026
cette pièce me fixe *
I’ve never been accused of knowing too much.
Teachers would wonder if I knew anything.
Too much knowledge leads to overactivity;
Better to calm the mind.
The more you consider, the greater the loss;
Better to unify the mind.
Water dripping ceaselessly
Will fill the four seas.
Specks of dust not wiped away
Will become the five mountains.
—Wang Ming (6th c.)
The more cluttered this room gets the less chance I have to escape a fire or corral a cogent thought. Not that either of those things carries any attraction.
Seas and mountains are depths and heights unto themselves.
I’ve no idea what I am unto myself.
This room stares at me. *
小川のほとり、湿った葉の下 *
When I lost
My mind
I looked
In kitchen
Food scraps
Empty cat cans
Pile of unread
Mail and magazines
It was not there
It had been recycled
Dumped in bin
At transfer station
Waiting to be
Taken elsewhere
Living without
A mind is ok
No one looks at you
You become nameless
If you happen outside
Squirrels jump off feeder
Birds fly off waiting for
New seed, grass stretches
Sky hangs cloud laundry
Port-a-potty passes on truck
But no mind
Not anywhere to be found
Only walking sticks
Leaning by barn door
Talking to each other of
once-were’s and used-to-be’s
Their rubber tips
Not nearly worn through
Where some mind on a mountain
Might have dropped a thought
Some passing hiker’s boot nudged
It under damp leaves by rivulet *
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
φροντίδα για την υγεία*
Caring for health.*
“I think that being scared is a sign of being sane.” (Line from series taking place in Spain spoken to detective with paranoid schizophrenia in his family.)
Hantavirus isn’t a worry for another pandemic, Malignant narcissism and besotted egomania is more the fear of the remaining sane population. The greed and criminal insanity of the head of the Executive Branch has a viral effect on each person under his malevolent shadow. We are a nation under threat of infected imprinting spiralling down the social/cultural genomes of a weakened biological/spiritual population.
Being angry is a false-positive.
Being scared might be the route to sanity.
Just like, long ago, the fear of the lord was the beginning of wisdom.
Now, fear of our insane chief executive might trigger a latent immune system to produce antibodies and creative cells to replicate a clear and healthy body-politic going forward.
We need a sane, clean, and healthy new patient-zero from whom to begin the immunisation and recovery of an informed, justice-bitten, and resolved populace committed to not being sick.
Are you the one?
so sleep silent angel
Buddha sits on box in window
No temple, no altar, no rinzi or soto
No academic degree or political pac
No office seeking or board of directors
He sits there, rain behind him
No scandals threatening to topple him
Oh, the freedom of it — being nobody
Going nowhere, free from history
Isolated from opinion and scrutiny
The little bronze Buddha leaning back
Facsimile of someone long gone
Something of itself merely there —
If you want to practice Buddhism then
Practice Buddhism, a good enough choice
There are worse things to do — I’ll not mention
Them — these days I have chosen solitude
A reclusive consciousness behind closed doors
A stretch of road going nowhere, cars gliding by
xingling
Every apology is an admission of defeat. Some people never apologize. It doesn’t mean they are not defeated; it means they are dead to their circumstances and oblivious to whatever reality wherein they stand. These are dangerous people. They believe they are never wrong. That belief proves they are dead inside, and their outside is a grave danger to anyone near.
Since my will broke down
I now have a clearer view
of the leafing roadside trees
(wfh, with apologies to Mizuta Masahide)
In Hemingway’s words:
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
From Mirriam-Webster:
cf “will”:
: mental powers manifested as wishing, choosing, desiring, or intendingb: a disposition to act according to principles or endsc: the collective desire of a group, the will of the people5: the power of control over one's own actions or emotions, a man of iron will6a: something desired, especially : a choice or determination of one having authority or powerb (1) [from the phrase our will is which introduces it] : the part of a summons expressing a royal command
From Yuan Mei:
Blossoms bring the Spring.
Spring doesn’t take them with it
When it goes.
Clouds flow upon the stream.
The stream cannot hold them.
I’d ask why that is,
But no one’s here, but
This tall tree,
Beneath which I will idle
Pondering
The place,
The Spring,
The clouds.
Yuan Mei (1716-1798)
Yuan Mei proposed xingling as necessary for poetry.
The literary theory of xingling (“soul”) is an early category in the history of Chinese literature, which was first proposed by the famed Buddhist literati Fan Tai, Xie Lingyun, Yan Yanzhi, He Shangzhi and other figures during the Southern Dynasties, Liu and Song periods, and broadly applied by figures such as Liu Xie, Zhong Rong and Yu Xin to esthetic theory and poetry criticism. There are chiefly two aspects to the origins of the literary theory of xingling in Buddhist philosophy: The first is the idea of foxing (“Buddhatā, Buddha-nature”) within teachings on nirvana in Mahāyāna Buddhism, and the second is the idea of shishen (“vijñāna, consciousness”) in Hīnayāna Buddhism. After being introduced into China, the theories of “Buddha-nature” and “consciousness” were ingeniously combined with the concepts of guishen (“supernatural beings”) and linghun (“spirit”) in the native Chinese tradition. “Buddha-nature,” “consciousness,” and shenling (“divinity”) were organically integrated, forming the basic content of the Buddhist theory of xingling, which referred not only to a constant and immutable, supremely powerful, and mystical force intrinsically possessed by all living creatures (sentient beings), but also to a foundational energy that filled the cosmos and obliterated differences. This provided a profound and substantial philosophical basis for the literary theory of xingling by Liu Xie, Zhong Rong, Yu Xin and other figures, imbuing xingling with the status and power of a universal center with supreme sublimity and matchless energy.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00094633.2023.2180210
Upon further consideration, that which is core within us is care. Those with damaged souls (core) do not actualize care. They suffer this lack as do those near them or those under their supposed care.
We have a Republican administration suffering an absent core of care. So too Legislature. So too Supreme Court. So too Republican majorities and governance in Red states.
They are killing us.
Like serial murderers not yet apprehended they elude accountability and avoid justice.
We are besieged and distraught.
Still, in the Northeast, blossoms bring the Spring.
A clear view of what is flowering helps heal what is broken.
neumz, from laudes
8. Aspérges me hyssópo, et mundábor:
8. O purify me, then I shall be clean;
lavábis me, et super nivem dealbábor.
O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.
9. Audítui meo dabis gáudium et lætítiam:
9. Make me hear rejoicing and gladness,
et exsultábunt ossa humiliáta.
that the bones you have crushed may revive.
10. Avérte fáciem tuam a peccátis meis:
10. From my sins turn away your face
et omnes iniquitátes meas dele.
and blot out all my guilt.
11. Cor mundum crea in me, Deus:
11. A pure heart create for me, O God,
et spíritum rectum ínnova in viscéribus meis.
put a steadfast spirit within me.
12. Ne projícias me a fácie tua:
12. Do not cast me away from your presence,
et spíritum sanctum tuum ne áuferas a me.
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.
13. Redde mihi lætítiam salutáris tui:
13. Give me again the joy of your help;
et spíritu principáli confírma me.
with a spirit of fervor sustain me.
14. Docébo iníquos vias tuas:
14. that I may teach transgressors your ways
et ímpii ad te converténtur.
and sinners may return to you.
15. Líbera me de sanguínibus, Deus, Deus salútis meæ:
15. O rescue me, God, my helper,
et exsultábit lingua mea justítiam tuam.
and my tongue shall ring out your goodness.
16. Dómine, lábia mea apéries:
16. O Lord, open my lips
et os meum annuntiábit laudem tuam.
and my mouth shall declare your praise.
17. Quóniam si voluísses sacrifícium, dedíssem útique:
17. For in sacrifice you take no delight,
holocáustis non delectáberis.
burnt offering from me, you would refuse.
18. Sacrifícium Deo spíritus contribulátus:
18. My sacrifice, a contrite spirit,
cor contrítum et humiliátum, Deus, non despícies.
a humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.
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