{"id":6487,"date":"2019-07-12T07:15:35","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T14:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=6487"},"modified":"2019-07-12T07:49:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T14:49:03","slug":"thomas-merton-song-for-nobody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/12\/thomas-merton-song-for-nobody\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Merton – Song for Nobody"},"content":{"rendered":"

Song for Nobody
\nby Thomas Merton<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A yellow flower
\n(Light and spirit)
\nSings by itself
\nFor nobody.<\/em><\/p>\n

A golden spirit
\n(Light and emptiness)
\nSings without a word
\nBy itself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let no one touch this gentle sun
\nIn whose dark eye
\nSomeone is awake.<\/em><\/p>\n

(No light, no gold, no name, no color
\nAnd no thought:
\nO, wide awake!)<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>A golden heaven
\nSings by itself
\nA song to nobody.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> — from Selected Poems of Thomas Merton<\/a>, by Thomas Merton<\/font><\/p>\n


\n\/ Image by Jonathan Thorne<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Let us sing a song… for nobody.<\/p>\n

A yellow flower
\n(Light and spirit)
\nSings by itself
\nFor nobody.<\/i><\/p>\n

I imagine Thomas Merton on a morning walk through a dawn-lit field where nothing much is happening. Just some damp grasses and a few bright flowers waking to the sun. Those flowers stand there unnoticed, unseen until now, yet they carry such bold life, bright yellow petals radiant in the morning sun. They are an embodiment of light and spirit.<\/p>\n

All of life, all of existence sings — but for whom?<\/p>\n

The world dances with a golden light. Who is the real audience for this performance?<\/p>\n

Perhaps the intended audience is God. Perhaps the flowers array themselves for their own private delight. But Merton says this song of light and spirit is for nobody because it is clearly not for him. He is utterly inconsequential to the scene. The flowers don’t care about him. They don’t adjust themselves to his presence. In fact, he is the one who is unnoticed, not the flowers.<\/p>\n

(No light, no gold, no name, no color
\nAnd no thought:
\nO, wide awake!)<\/i><\/p>\n

Enraptured by this moment of beauty, to which he is a non-entity, Merton disappears. Thought ceases, the mind quiets and brings to a halt its endless naming and categorizing. There is just stillness and the moment witnessed. That is when the ecstatic moment of awakening occurs — O, wide awake!<\/p>\n

A golden heaven
\nSings by itself
\nA song to nobody.<\/i><\/p>\n

In this state of no-mind and no-self, we, along with Merton, are somehow profoundly alive! Awake, we see the world, perhaps for the first time, as it truly is — a golden heaven. And that heaven sings all around us, all the time! For whom? For no one in particular. Life sings to life. Spirit sings because it is spirit. The nature of being is song and light and life. When we quiet the busy mind and drop our own self-importance, we too join in that living symphony.<\/p>\n

Have a beautiful day!<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Thomas Merton<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Selected Poems of Thomas Merton<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Collected Poems of Thomas Merton<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nA Thomas Merton Reader<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Strange Islands: Poems by Thomas Merton<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThomas Merton Monk & Poet: A Critical Study<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n\n
\n\"Thomas<\/a><\/td>\n\nThomas Merton<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

US (1915 – 1968) Timeline<\/a>
\nChristian<\/a> : Catholic<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em><\/td>\n

[ad#Adsense-4]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Thomas Merton was a hugely influential Catholic monk and mystic of the 20th century who wrote with great insight and inspiration on the spiritual journey and the quest for meaning and inner silence within the modern world. He was an important voice in opening up a dialog between the spiritual traditions of East and West. He himself studied many Eastern spiritual practices deeply, from Zen meditation to Hindu yogic philosophy.<\/p>\n

He is best known today for his essays on the spiritual life, especially his first book, The Seven Storey Mountain<\/i>.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Thomas Merton<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Song for Nobody by Thomas Merton A yellow flower (Light and spirit) Sings by itself For nobody. A golden spirit (Light and emptiness) Sings without a word By itself. Let no one touch this gentle sun In whose dark eye Someone is awake. (No light, no gold, no name, no color And no thought: O, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[53,1281,60,2282,51],"class_list":["post-6487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-catholic-poetry","tag-flower","tag-light","tag-song-for-nobody","tag-thomas-merton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6487"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6496,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487\/revisions\/6496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}