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Secular or Eclectic
Buddhist
Contemporary

About Jane Hirshfield

Timeline (Contemporary)

Jane Hirshfield, Jane Hirshfield poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry,  poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, Buddhist poetry

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Original Language
English

The Task

Themes
  Dawn
  Fire
  Garden
  Rose
  Sun

 

Recommended Books

After: Poems, by Jane Hirshfield
Each Happiness Ringed by Lions, by Jane Hirshfield
Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems, by Jane Hirshfield
The Lives of the Heart: Poems, by Jane Hirshfield
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, by Jane Hirshfield

More >>

It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily - open eyes, braid hair -
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.

And yes, it is a simple enough task
we've taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,

from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,

and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked

sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.

 

 

-- from The October Palace: Poems, by Jane Hirshfield

Amazon.com

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.