Pleasure gives me satisfaction
I cannot tell a lie
Happiness gives me infinitely more satisfaction
Truth, Absolute Truth
It seems in order to buy pleasure I
Must spend happiness.
Therefore I have decided it is an
Unwise transaction.
Jitavrata Jacobs.
——-
Drawn from the April 2006 edition of Panorama.
Such beauty in these poetic verses from Lord Byron…
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.——-
There is music in the sighing of a reed;
There’s music in the gushing of a rill;
There’s music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
A vast expanse
Higher and still higher
Beyond the reaches
Of limitation and thought
The deepening sky
Arches everlastingly.
From its midst an evening star
Shines with the ancient burning light
Of a million yearning eyes.
Piercing the stillness of space,
She watches eternally.
Mountains stand regal below
Peaks climbing skyward
Steeply they rise
To encircle the night.
Like chords they reverberate
Infinity’s Peace.
Tears flood my eyes
As in silence I stand
Regarding this night.
Breathless I cry,
How long will it be? How far is my goal?
The evening star smiles at me
Immortality’s Love.
——-
Drawn from the August 2004 edition of Panorama.
To all of Panorama’s visitors, may you read and write some lovely poems in this New Year 2008. And may you all add some lovely verses to the great poem that we have been writing together down through the ages – the poem that is revealing, beautifying and increasing the reality of our universal oneness…
A Popular Notion
There is a popular notion
Concerning mankind’s creativity
That considers it living proof
Of our inherent divinity.
Though this may be true,
Before pride makes us deranged
Bear in mind that God creates,
Human beings just rearrange.
– Kalatit Baker.
——-
Drawn from the April 1999 edition of Panorama.
Bay of Antalya
I scan the horizon haze.
At any moment, I know,
The white sails will appear
In their hundreds.
I can feel their approach,
See their ensigns of war
Advancing over the silent waves,
Rowers straining in the galleys.
Already they have seen our cliffs
Pitted over centuries,
Already they can taste
Our honeycomb and cheese,
Drink our Turkish coffee in the sun.
Why do they seek to break
The stillness of this blue afternoon?
Why do they force us
To don our tired armour
And hide in caves
With rusty weapons?
Why do they lust after
The wealth of Asia,
Pursue in vain the mysteries
of distant empires?
Let them turn back
To their own shores,
Vanish again in the mist,
Subdue the spirit of war.
Let them conquer first
Their own mind-infidels.
– Vidagdha Bennett.
——-
Drawn from the August 2007 edition of Panorama.
Three Haiku
waking from a dream
of rain falling
to rain, falling
——-
and my life too
is passing – evening light
on the far mountains
——-
in the silence
after chanting mantras –
birdsong
– Janaka Alan Spence.
——-
Drawn from the August 2007 edition of Panorama.
