For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a
bitter breadthat feeds but half mans hunger.
Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full
set awaits the wind.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if
your belovedwere to dwell in that house.
GIVE your hearts, but not into each others keeping.
It is a depth calling unto a height,But it is not the deep nor the high. And a ship
without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous islesyet sink not to the bottom.
IN winter say the snow-bound, She shall come with the springleaping upon the hills.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? And when his work
was done he laughed in the forest.
Fill each others cup but drink not from one cup.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. THE aggrieved and the injured
say, Beauty is kind and gentle. For the law that delivered you into my hand shall
deliver meinto a mightier hand. Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the
night,or the firefly the stars?
WHEN you work you are a flute through whose heart
the whisperingof the hours turns to music.
ON PRAYERTHEN a priestess said, Speak to us of
Prayer. In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for rootswith quivering
hands.
FOR even as love crowns you so shall he crucify
you.
SAY not, I have found the truth, but rather, I have
found a truth.
YOU may give them your love but not your
thoughts,For they have their own thoughts.
Shall my heart become a tree heavy-laden with fruit
that I may gatherand give unto them? Yet when you are not one with yourself you are
not evil. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent
forth.
AND there came out of the sanctuary a woman whose
name was Almitra.
For the law that delivered you into my hand shall
deliver meinto a mightier hand.
ON EATING AND DRINKINGTHEN an old man, a keeper of
an inn, said, Speak to us of Eating andDrinking.
You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow
has been a lightupon our faces.
AND what is it but fragments of your own self you
would discardthat you may become free?
For life goes not backward nor tarries with
yesterday.
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the
very woodthat was hollowed with knives?
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
And now you come in my awakening,which is my deeper dream.
But you who are strong and swift, see that you do
not limpbefore the lame, deeming it kindness. YOUR reason and your passion are the
rudder and the sailsof your seafaring soul.
ON TEACHINGTHEN said a teacher, Speak to us of
Teaching.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to
make them like you. It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeerat the
dignity of the flesh.