This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness
Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness
Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.
These words I’m saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.
Janet Fitch, from her novel titled "White Oleander," originally published in 1999
“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”
— Thomas Paine, Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal
Chessboard. 19th century. Credit line: Gift of Gustavus A. Pfeiffer, 1953 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/201482
ببصلها وكأنها بتتحرك حواليا بالتصوير البطيئ،مش عارفه تبتسم ف الوقت الصح ولا عارفه ترد،مش مركزه معايا اصلا،كدا كده حالتك بتسوء بس عموما وبعيد عن الحاله اللى انتى فيها دى انا كده شايفك احلى وبتحلووى،انتى مش محتاجه لوجود حد بس انا محتاج،وده كفايه بعد ما كلنا كنا بنعتمد عليكى. الوجع اللى بتحسيه من ناحيتى،انا مابقتش موجود اصلا علشان تحسيه،بس روحى موجوده،سامحينى. "بكلم الشمس" حلوه الشمس،صح!
“You create your own world by your inner attitude,”
— Margaret Atwood, from “The Year of the Flood,” published c. 2009
The bells and other poems - Edgar Allan Poe, Edmund Dulac, ill. - 1912 - via Internet Archive