Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Awkward Comparisons


This physical world has no two things alike.
Every comparison is awkwardly rough.

You can put a lion next to a man,
but the placing is hazardous to both.

Say the body is like this lamp.
It has to have a wick and oil, sleep and food.
If it doesn't get those, it will die,
and it is always burning those up, trying to die.

But where is the sun in this comparison?
It rises, and the lamp's light
mixes with the day.

Oneness, which is the true reality,
cannot be understood with lamp and sun images,
and the blurring of a plural into a unity is wrong.

No image can describe
what of our fathers and mothers,
our grandfathers and grandmothers, remains.

Language does not touch
the one who lives in both of us.

2 comments:

who said...

Ok Ruthi,
I am just going to go ahead and warn you now in case I forget. I read ahead through the end of the year with Ruthi, and in reading it I can can almost say without a doubt when I see the post if I forget that I already verified it was in fact previously printed, I am going to message you with all kinds of crazy paranoid thoughts.

I will accuse you of intentionally posting those words and that you did not write them verbatim from any book. I am sure you will calmly inform me exactly what had happened and for some strange reason, you won't loose your temper when I ask the same question 12 different ways, and then still treat you with suspicion.

The exact same way you have always treated me, since the first day I messaged you after leaving some crazy comment on an old post.

Thank You Ruthi, I honestly have never met a finer person in my entire life. And I know for sure I have never said all the crazy things and wild accusations to anybody like I had written to you because you ALWAYS listened.

that was such a beautiful thing to me Ruth and helped me more than you will ever know.

thank you for being you Ruth

thank you

Ruth said...

Dusti: You're magnificent.