The Inner Valley

Boss of all bosses of the universe. Mr. know-it-all, wheeler-dealer, wire-puller, And whatever else you're good at. Go ahead, shuffle your zeros tonight. Dip in ink the comets' tails. Staple the night with starlight. You'd be better off reading coffee dregs, Thumbing the pages of the Farmer's Almanac. But no! You love to put on airs, And cultivate your famous serenity While you sit behind your big desk With zilch in your in-tray, zilch In your out-tray, And all of eternity spread around you. Doesn't it give you the creeps To hear them begging you on their knees, Sputtering endearments, As if you were an inflatable, life-size doll? Tell them to button up and go to bed. Stop pretending you're too busy to take notice. Your hands are empty and so are your eyes. There's nothing to put your signature to, Even if you knew your own name, Or believed the ones I keep inventing, As I scribble this note to you in the dark. ******* ✍ Charles Simic (Belgrade, Yug

Water hollows stone, wind scatters water, stone stops the wind. Water, wind, stone. Wind carves stone, stone's a cup of water, water escapes and is wind. Stone, wind, water. Wind sings in its whirling, water murmurs going by, unmoving stone keeps still. Wind, water, stone. Each is another and no other: crossing and vanishing through their empty names: water, stone, wind. ******* ✍  Octavio Paz ( Mexico City, 31 March 1914 ~ Mexico City, 19 April 1998). ◙ Artwork: Peder Balke

I wrote stone I wrote house I wrote town I shattered the stone I demolished the house I obliterated the town the page traces the struggles between creation and annihilation ******* ✍ Ryszard Kapuściński (Pinsk, Poland, 4 March 1932 ~ Warsaw, Poland, 23 January 2007). 

What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch, These are the measures destined for her soul.  ******* ✍  Wallace Stevens (Reading, Pennsylvania, 2 October 1879 ~ Hartford, Connecticut, 2 August 1955).   ◙ Artwork: Max Ernst 

This solitary hill has always been dear to me And this hedge, which prevents me from seeing most of The endless horizon. But when I sit and gaze, I imagine, in my thoughts Endless spaces beyond the hedge, An all encompassing silence and a deeply profound quiet, To the point that my heart is almost overwhelmed. And when I hear the wind rustling through the trees I compare its voice to the infinite silence. And eternity occurs to me, and all the ages past, And the present time, and its sound. Amidst this immensity my thought drowns: And to founder in this sea is sweet to me. *******    ✍  Giacomo Leopardi (Recanati, Papal States, 29 June 1798 ~ Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 14 June 1837).   ◙ Artwork: Caspar David Friedrich.