The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.



Oriah

Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science

5

The smallest muscle in the human body is in the ear.

It is also the only muscle that does not have blood vessels;

It has fluid instead. The reason for this is clear:

The ear is so sensitive that the body, if it heard its own pulse,

Would be devastated by the amplification of its own sound.   

In this knowledge I sense a great metaphor,

But I do not want to be hasty in trying to capture or describe it.   

Words are our weakest hold on the world.

Alberto Ríos

Some Extensions on the Soveriegnty of Science

4

The reason you can’t lose weight later on in life is simple enough.   

It’s because of how so many people you know have died,

And that you carry a little of each of them with you.

Alberto Ríos

Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science

2

The hardest work of the last quarter of the twentieth century is to find   

An edge in the middle. When something explodes, for example,

Nobody is confused about what to do—you look toward it.

Loud is a magnet. But the laws of magnetism are more complex.

One might just as well try this: When something explodes,   

Turn exactly opposite from it and see what there is to see.

The loud will take care of itself, and everyone will be able to say   

What happened in that direction. But who is looking

The other way? Nature, that magician and author of loud sounds,   

Zookeeper and cook, electrician and provocateur—

Maybe these events are Nature’s sleight of hand, and the real   

Thing that’s happening is in the other hand,

Or behind or above or below or inside us. 

 

 

 

 Alberto Ríos

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.



W. H. Auden

Untitled

It hurts
when love dies.
When love is deep,
it hurts deeply--
more deeply maybe than you thought
anything would ever hurt
again.

But with time,
the spaces between the moments when it hurts
get longer,
the moments themselves become
less devastating,
till eventually you come to associate them
with a sad sweetness
that has as much in common
with love
as it does with grief.

I wish you long
spaces in between,
and may you carry into them
all of that sweetness,
and only enough sadness to attest
the risk that's being taken
by everyone who loves you.


Jack McCarthy