The Headstrong Spirit often
Flashes forth with Harmful Bane²
They Suffer More than Necessary
Who Suffer Before it is Necessary³
In your Patience – Possess ye your Souls⁴
I Slow down the Tune, I never liked it Fast –
You want to arrive Soon, I want to arrive Last⁵
Not Hurrying, the Purposeless Life Misses Nothing,
For it’s only when there’s No Goal and no Rush that
All the senses are fully Open to receive the world⁶
If you Crave Speed then you will Never Arrive⁷
Defer thy Flight a Moment still to
Clean thy Wing with Careful Bill⁸
I’ll Wait – until I become Sisters
With the Statue dressed in Moss⁹
Our Pace takes Sudden Awe –
Our Feet – Reluctant – Lead¹⁰
¹ Bon Iver, Minnesota, WI
² Bias tr. Robert Drew Hicks, Laërtius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
³ Seneca tr. Richard M. Gummere, Moral letters to Lucilius 98
⁴ Luke 21:19 (Kings James)
⁵ Leonard Cohen, Slow
⁶ Alan Watts, The Way of Zen
⁷ Confucius tr. Edward Slingerland, Analects 13.17
⁸ Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Fledgling
⁹ Anna Meister, Flower for Eyes
¹⁰ Emily Dickinson, Our Journey Had Advanced