Father! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name.
How you die out in me: down to the last worn-out knot of breath you're there, with a splinter of life.
Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.
Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.
A poem, being an instance of language, hence essentially dialogue, may be a letter in a bottle thrown out to the sea with the-surely not always strong-hope that it may somehow wash up somewhere, perhaps on the shoreline of the heart. In this way, too, poems are en route: they are headed towards. Toward what? Toward something open, inhabitable, an approachable you, perhaps, an approachable reality. Such realities are, I think, at stake in a poem.
Reality is not simply there, it does not simply exist: it must be sought out and won.
German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry. . . . Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty. " It tries to be truthful.
Zen is a special transmission outside the scriptures,With no reliance on words and letters. A direct pointing to the human mind,And the realization of enlightenment.
People in extreme conditions are suddenly naked, realer than normal, perhaps even more alive.
It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. . . . The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.
I won a noble fame; But with a sudden frown, The people snatched my crown, And, in the mire, trod down My lofty name.