…I admit: I see great value in the statement below. Am I capable of living within the wisdom behind it? Do I have the courage? To a dramatic disadvantage of my physical and emotional well-being: no. Perhaps, you do. If so, then I wish more inner strength to you.
“When you realize the fact that everything changes and find your composure in it, there you find yourself in nirvana.” ~ Shogaku Shunryu Suzuki
[Photo Credit: SWEEPING ZEN]
Filed under Reflections
[Image Credit: Prof. William R. LaFleur]
…I know I am the one who selected the quote below for today but I am not at all sure how to understand it…is it possible that the inability to attribute an immediate meaning to what we believe we see becomes a most vital part of our understanding in the end?
“A difficult thing it is to be born as a human and every man who floats lazily through this world must sink to the depths again.” ~ Saigyo/Sato Norikiyo
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…while I respectfully post the quote below, I am well aware how a life reality shared by many of us determines whether or not we can indeed “follow what brings us alive”: from under the chains of the multitudes of moments forced upon us to be spent making a living for survival, doing “that which brings us alive” becomes an unaffordable luxury…
“What is truly a part of our spiritual path is that which brings us alive. If gardening brings us alive, that is part of our path, if it is music, if it is conversation…we must follow what brings us alive.” ~ David Steindl-Rast
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“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” ~ Anais Nin
Filed under Reflections
[Click for Photo/Image Credit]
Perhaps, you know the feeling: a moment in which a sad memory is triggered yet once again but meets a bitter-sweet attempt at a relief in the heart no matter how faint its plea…without you having realized a change in you toward emotional survival. For you are just too tired of the agony that has been bleeding out of the core of your being, dragging your original self to the open seas, trying in desperation to no longer hope against the apparent outcome…
i had never learned
how to sail a paper boat
in nature’s moving water
when i was little
throughout my adult life then
i suffered despondent beyond despair
clinging to my passions fervent dreams visions
begging the river around me to flow at my tending will
i the desperate fool for love am yet to set sail
to dissolve into the current of the sea
for i have been told about the harmony within each ripple
how it promises to ease what pains me to feel…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
8.23.2015
Filed under Poetry
[Image Credit: “sad and simple”
Long ago, I read an article on “things” some of us find difficult to express when we communicate with others. Three of those simple words work as my post’s title today. At times, even an exceptionally loved one may withhold these few letters what to us mean comfort at moments of despair, like a reassuring whisper to re-pump the drying heart. Perhaps, articulating these love-filled sounds equates to that beloved a forced confession of feelings of guilt, fault, blame or acceptance of an unwanted judgment. If only it weren’t for one fact: when there is love, there is no need for defense. For, there can be no intended offense.
I have no further deliberations on the subject – at least nothing I find worthy enough as far as a personal thought in prose to share with you here. Instead, I have jotted down some reflective lines in the form of a hopeful poem:
the fragile soul had never been undressed this way
nor can it ever again
for it has decided to be a once-only lover
it should have known not to attempt a fatal risk
still it hasn’t regretted being so bare
before the one for whom it had stripped itself
of hopes expectations
guilt blame fault
judgments
the innermost turbulence yet trashed it apart
with as violent a tearing from its core as can be
into a blindness of the temporary kind
the ego blamed guilted the other
dared to hope and to expect
not even massive masses of tears sufficed
to revive it from its raging death
from the beloved then it borrowed a new breath
stillness of the soul thus was demanded to prevail…
on its torturous path of an onus yet
it now opts in vain to regain courage
toward an ajar if not an open gate
for peace and salvation per the latest request:
not expecting
nor blaming
not faulting
nor guilting
not hoping
nor judging
just being dead
as needed by all
but the dying soul itself
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
8.3.2015
Filed under Poetry
If it seems to you like I have been preoccupied with the concept of death lately, you are not mistaken. Reasons that take you to this thought also find me, is my only defense. When one new sad coincidence hit me hard enough, I ended up in a brief direct speech with life’s notorious opposite. In my miniscule poem below. But first, allow me to share with you what to me came as a tragic irony:
May 7th is the date when my mother died – at the age of 48. May 7th was, however, the birthday of my mother’s beloved older brother. He died recently after achieving 84 years among the living. This past Thursday, May 7th has marked the 40th day after his death – according to some practicing Muslims, a time demanding a memorial event. I thus hope to justify my point of focus…
oh death
show me a way
not to love beyond sanity
teach me how to mourn in dignity
in honor of the nothing’s eternity
with grace
© hülya n. yılmaz, April 4, 2015
This poem was one of my three contributions for the May 2015 issue of The Year of the Poet, a monthly book series published by Inner Child Press, Ltd.
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…semester’s last week is now over…final essays and assignments, assessment and grading steps are still at my door, awaiting attention…therefore, I am leaving you with yet another poem of mine in lieu of my customary Sunday reflections and look forward in much anticipation to our next meeting. May this day and next week bring you wonders you will experience with childlike curiosity-filled eyes.
Photography Credit: Romeo Koitmae
no ether
does the record date back to the early eleventh century?
you would know, my love, we also shared our profession:
they would seize the patient in a prolonged procession
to the bloody altar slowly they would lower him down
in the agony of his existing pain he would partially drown
with a swift gash, his appendix, liver or one of the intestines
would reappear before everyone’s eyes in its carnage glory
can you see now, my beloved, how it had felt
not from your’s – the intact one…
but since my alive autopsied end?
© hülya n yılmaz – March 27, 2014
From the “letter-poems to the beloved” collection
Filed under Poetry
…thank you for bearing with me the last two times and for the next two more times…while I only offer you my poems…I hope to return to my usual style of reflections, once my semester ends…just around the corner…As always before, I very much look forward to your next visit. May you have a laughter-filled Sunday and an identical new week.
Photography Credit: Serhat Demiroğlu
still playing
i was to be removed
not for lack of love or means
for fear of that dreadful disease
had since my share of ravened joys macaw-donned ills
sets of chains of shackled years eternalized my fasting
trite servings heaped on my plate with no shame
a honeyed blessing it was that you came
dabbed from my mind any fear of intimacy
flavored each morsel on my tray to utmost ecstasy
kneaded for me passionate love into life’s bleak reality
just when
my lungs closed up to solely heed your affectionate breath
the scarlet chamber learned to refuse a beat without yours…
the moment came that made you leave me
i was to be removed
am now orphaned by a cruel bliss
patiently await the end to grant me its fawning kiss
© hülya n yılmaz – March 26, 2014
From the “letter-poems to the beloved” collection
Filed under Poetry
Image Credit: ideami.com
after
have you ever eaten *helva, my love
to the sizzle of the slowly melting butter
anxious in its wait to savor each flake of sugar
the scent of the browning flour in your breath
milk drops rapt in a dance of the delicate blend
yearning for the ultimate sweet feast?
have you ever eaten helva, my love
when sugar though was no longer to be found?
© hülya n yılmaz – March 26, 2014
From the “letter-poems to the beloved” collection
[*With “helva,” I refer here to the Turkish dessert, “un helvası” (flour halwa).]
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