inwardly
echoing
aesthetic
poverty
We have seen that the experience of aesthetic pleasure betrays the real presence of movement…even though we ourselves have brought about the conditions for it by pretending to forget what we are and know
…there is only
one great thing
the only thing
to live to see
in huts and on journeys
the great day that dawns
and the light that fills the world
The lightness of experiencing the world is different it isn’t centered on anything
in particular what fills the soul is precisely the lightness of the indefinite
Not the branch lifting in the wind but the wind
Not the leaves reflecting the sunlight but the sunlight
There is an animal
mystery in the light
that sets upon the fields
like a frozen muscle that will
flex and wake at sunrise
Like vanishing dew
a passing apparition
or the sudden flash
of lightning already gone
thus should one regard oneself
I ask the master to show
the way Without a word
he points to the clouds
in the sky and the water
in the vase
Having reached the water’s edge
and there is no more path
just sit and watch the rising clouds
It is only when we have risen
from beholding the creature
into beholding creature
that our mortality catches for a moment
the music of the turning spheres
We shall hardly be surprised to hear
in the music which such a poet creates
…something like an echo of just those rhythms
Owen Barfield
1
Excerpt from a Kitlinguharmiut song
2
Karl Ove Knausgård
3
JA Baker
4
Ikkyu Sojun
5
Wang Wei
7
Owen Barfield
8
Yaoshan Weiyan
6
