We find fault with humans—
Because there is no Window in their breast that
All might see their inward Thoughts & Feelings.²
We interpret in harmonious verses what the Soul
In its wonder feels vaguely in sterile emotions.³
Writing in the Red light of Emotion—
And not in the White light of Truth—⁴
Deep Emotion—how can we
Explain it the next day?⁵
Do you always Trust your first initial feeling?
Special knowledge holds true, bears Believing.⁶
A thousand Spleens bear us a thousand ways—⁷
All manner of Feelings are locked up within our breast
And all manner of events summon them out!⁸
Our Good depends on the
Quality & Breadth of our emotion.⁹
Don’t practice to feel good:
Practice to feel More!¹⁰
¹ Richard Eberhart, The Soul Longs to Return Whence it Came
² Aesop tr. Thomas James, Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva, and Momus
³ C.P. Cavafy tr. Rae Dalven, Correspondence According to Baudelaire
⁴ Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
⁵ Ryōkan tr. John Stevens, Intermittent Rain
⁶ Stephanie Nicks, Crystal
⁷ William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis
⁸ Jamaica Kincaid, Blackness
⁹ George Eliot, Middlemarch
¹⁰ Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy