The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:

Something else is alive

Beside the clock's loneliness

And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:

Something more near

Though deeper within darkness

Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow

A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;

Two eyes serve a movement, that now

And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow

Between trees, and warily a lame

Shadow lags by stump and in hollow

Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,

A widening deepening greenness,

Brilliantly, concentratedly,

Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.

The window is starless still; the clock ticks,

The page is printed.

Study of the Object - Zbigniew Herbert

Study of the Object

1

 The most beautiful is the object
which does not exist

 it does not serve to carry water
or to preserve the ashes of a hero

 it was not cradled by Antigone
nor was a rat drowned in it

 it has no hole
and is entirely open

 seen
from every side
which means
hardly anticipated

 the hairs
of all its lines
join
in one stream of light

 neither
blindness
nor
death
can take away the object
which does not exist

2

 mark the place
where stood the object
which does not exist
with a black square
it will be
a simple dirge
for the beautiful absence

 manly regret
imprisoned
in a quadrangle

3

 now
all space
swells like an ocean

 a hurricane beats
on the black sail

 the wing of a blizzard circles
over the black square

 and the island sinks
beneath the salty increase

4

 now you have
empty space
more beautiful than the object
more beautiful than the place it leaves
it is the pre-world
a white paradise
of all possibilities
you may enter there
cry out
vertical-horizontal
perpendicular lightning
strikes the naked horizon

 we can stop at that
anyway you have already created a world

5

 obey the counsels
of the inner eye

 do not yield
to murmurs mutterings smackings

 it is the uncreated world
crowding before the gates of your canvas

 angels are offering
the rosy wadding of clouds

 trees are inserting everywhere
slovenly green hair

 kings are praising purple
and commanding their trumpeters
to gild

 even the whale asks for a portrait

 obey the counsels of the inner eye
admit no one

6

 extract
from the shadow of the object
which does not exist
from polar space
from the stern reveries of the inner eye
a chair

 beautiful and useless
like a cathedral in the wilderness

 place on the chair
a crumpled tablecloth
add to the idea of order
the idea of adventure

 let it be a confession of faith
before the vertical struggling with the horizontal

 let it be
quieter than angels
prouder than kings
more substantial than a whale
let it have the face of the last things

 we ask reveal o chair
the depths of the inner eye
the iris of necessity
the pupil of death
—Zbigniew Herbert

From The Collected Poems, 1956-1998 (Ecco), translated by Alissa Valles.

Into My Own - Robert Frost

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true.
—Robert Frost

A heart that is Yours

Psalm 114:7-8
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, 

At the presence of the God of Jacob, 

Who turned the rock into a pool of water, 

The flint into a fountain of waters.

Ezekiel 11:19

Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

Lord, sometimes I worry about my heart because I can feel the rocks. Pour out your Spirit into me that I may have a heart of flesh. Grant me that heart for peace-making, which encompasses wisdom, courage, sensitivity, love, devotion to truth and understanding. Amen.

Grey matters - C.S. Lewis gems

C.S. Lewis:

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."

  

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible. 


When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong, they need your prayers all the more, and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.

We are what we believe we are. 

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.

An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

The warm sun and the cold wind

I came across a quote by a Japanese corporate executive: "If  you need to make someone take off his coat, don't be like a cold wind. You should be like sunlight to make the person take off his coat voluntarily." 

For some reason, it made me think of evangelism. How are we to tell people about Christ? Do we "love" them to Christ or do we "hell" them to Christ?  

The power in redemption

A former colleague posed this question on his Facebook profile recently: How does one forgive himself?

I replied to him in this manner:

Here's how I forgive myself:
- I tell myself that forgiveness is difficult, and to to be patient with myself.
- I tell myself to love myself more by for example, doing things for myself that I like (reading books, listening to music, catching... concerts etc) and hanging out with people I like.
- I remind myself always that I am not perfect and should not expect others to be perfect, too.