I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. It’s from The Snow Man by Wallace Stephens. It’s a favourite of mine because it works on two levels for me.
On a physical and emotional level, it’s a beautiful evocation of the peace to be found in a winter wilderness, when the cold world is being cleansed to prepare for renewal. But there’s a metaphysical message in it too, although I have no idea whether Stephens meant it to be taken that way. It’s the most poetic evocation I’ve read of the fundamental claim of Vedic mysticism – that the state of bountiful emptiness is the stuff of ultimate reality.
For the listener who listens in the snow,
On a physical and emotional level, it’s a beautiful evocation of the peace to be found in a winter wilderness, when the cold world is being cleansed to prepare for renewal. But there’s a metaphysical message in it too, although I have no idea whether Stephens meant it to be taken that way. It’s the most poetic evocation I’ve read of the fundamental claim of Vedic mysticism – that the state of bountiful emptiness is the stuff of ultimate reality.
For the listener who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
2 comments:
It reminds me of really clear nights where you can see the stars-and it's almost so much that there seems to be so much nothingness, too.
Okay, that didn't actually make sense...
Makes sense to me. Gets deep doesn't it, if you let it?
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