I took two steps into the waking of this world.
The rising sun crowned the tops of low hung clouds and
cool, wet evening earth rose to the warmth of morning air.
Days have gone by, and I close my eyes.
I breathe in, picture
and am there again.

in the beginning and until today

I want the fruit
the one I cannot eat.
I have forgotten all things
for this one ripe pleasure.
Now, it must be mine.
Have I not blessing enough, you ask?
No, surely there is more.
Take and eat.

And I am hungry still.

Just one royal blade,
early morning sun on backlit grass.
Golden laced shadows,
stand against still darkened woods.
And this city of my mind
with its constant traffic
is at rest.

River

I walk up the river in the water and across logs back to shore, then over falls to unkown pools. Slipping, landing beside water eyes frame shadows dancing ferns, moss lacing moisture, timeless resting stones, and I drink. Fully satisfied, yet thirsty I rise and walk up the river.

windy trees

But there is another kind of seeing that involves letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied. The difference between the two ways of seeing is the diffeence between walking with and without a camera. When I walk with a camera I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment's light prints on my own silver gut. When I see this second way I am above all an unscrupulous observer.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

Buber

Martin Buber tells this tale:

"Rabbi Mendel once boasted to his teacher Rabbi Elimelekh that in the evenings he saw the angel who rolls away the light before the darkness and in the mornings the angel who rolls away the darkness before the light. 'Yes,' said Rabbi Elimelekh, 'in my youth I saw that too. Later on you don't see those things any more.' "