Autumn
Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkens—
as if a thousand pentinents
kissed an icon
till it thinned
back to bare wood,
without diminishment.
— Jane Hirshfield, in The October Palace
The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space. ~Italo Calvino
Commonplace book of a teacher, poet, and counselor.
Autumn
Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkens—
as if a thousand pentinents
kissed an icon
till it thinned
back to bare wood,
without diminishment.— Jane Hirshfield, in The October Palace
(via huong1952)
Autumn Again the wind flakes gold-leaf from the trees and the painting darkens— as if a thousand penitents kissed an...