This week, amid the world acknowledgment of Earth Day and the urgent call for countries to enact new policies in the face of climate change and ecological shifts, the Pandemic has taken a grave turn in India as well as Brazil. Here I offer poems from both countries, as a reminder that we are, as one world, in this Pandemic together. (Susan Nettleton)
"Eternal Life" by Contemporary Brazilian poet (1935 - ) Adelia Prado, translated by Ellen Dore Watson, from Ex-Voto, Tupelo Press, 2013
Half a century.
The weight of that word used to send me straight to bed.
No more. I’m gathering wisdom. Alchemists aren’t law breakers — sure, they’re naïve sometimes like the saints,
believing in stones, fish seen in dreams,
signs written on the sky. Where is God?
April is reborn out in the cosmos,
in the most perfect silence.
Inside and outside of me. +++++++++++++
Excerpt from "Harmony" # 22, pg.189-190, "The Garland of Guru's Sayings, the Guru Vachaka Kovai by Sri Muruganar, tr. by Prof. K. Swaminathan (poetic rendition of the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950)
...Whatever creed you may believe in, Turn inward with true faith, live up To it, instead of setting out To hate and attack the faith of others. Giving up sundry controversies...choose the best, Self-knowledge. Make your tapas (spiritual disciplines) ripe, Meditate on God and win His grace. While mind exists, creeds too exist. When mind turns inward in Self-quest And gets caught up in the heart, no creed Can in that peace serene survive.