Emily Burns

Stay close, my heart, to the one who knows your ways;
Come into the shade of the tree that always has fresh flowers.
Don't stroll idly through the bazaar of the perfume-markers:
Stay in the shop of the sugar-seller.
If you don't find true balance, anyone can deceive you;
Anyone can trick out of a thing of straw,
And make you take it for gold
Don't squat with a bowl before every boiling pot;
In each pot on the fire you find very different things.
Not all sugarcanes have sugar, not all abysses a peak;
Not all eyes possess vision, not every sea is full of pearls.
O nightingale, with your voice of dark honey! Go on lamenting!
Only your drunken ecstasy can pierce the rock's hard heart!
Surrender yourself, and if you cannot be welcomed by the Friend,
Know that you are rebelling inwardly like a thread
That doesn't want to go through the needle's eye!
The awakened heart is a lamp; protect it by the hem of your robe!
Hurry and get out of this wind, for the weather is bad.
And when you've left this storm, you will come to a fountain;
You'll find a Friend there who will always nourish your soul.
And with your soul always green, you'll grow into a tall tree
Flowering always with sweet light-fruit, whose growth is interior.


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Emily is sewing, her threads kept
in a pale blue can
There is a cameo on the lid
in white, in profile
She is working with small pieces
that grow large and wander
out the kitchen window
Soon they scatter the neighborhood
which is so small that no one takes
notice
They cross the mountains
into the cities, that pause,
in pleasure
There is a measure in the cloth
that they like
There is a voice somewhere
where the threads have worn soft
Emily has thrown away
some old patterns,
She has knotted the thread
with gentle teeth
She has pulled it tight
to make sure it will hold
Emily is sewing
with her luminous needle
Her eyes on alert
for dropped stitches.
--Phibby Venable

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The older I get, the less I remember to filter the words that flow from my brain to my mouth. I move quickly from one thought to another or I linger too long on something that was said five minutes ago. If you find that I've left "the verb and the pronoun out" of some exchange between us. Let me know. I'll get it together and we'll have a pleasant conversation.

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