From whiskey river:
Remember
That to have the eyes of an artist,
That can be enough,
The ear of a poet,
That can be enough.
The soul of a human
just pointed
in the direction of the divine,
that can be more than enough.
I tell you this to remind myself.
Every gesture is an act of creation.
Even empty spaces and silence
can be the wings and voices of angels.
(Michele Linfante)
Not from whiskey river:
Salthouse
When we walked up the hill above Salthouse
and saw, looking down where we’d beenourselves on the beach waving back —
we were here and there and no-placecoming and going at once, perceiving
the speckled clouds as sleeping seals,as we dipped our toes in the breeze
and watched from the hill’s shorelinea kestrel come in with the tide,
and hold his stillness openover the ship weathervane
of a church that was floating and drowned,his shadow on the ground beneath him
the anchor that kept him aloft.
(by Charles Bennett)
And:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
(T.S. Eliot, from Four Quartets: Little Gidding)
Finally, speaking of empty space and the voices of angels…