Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Secular or Eclectic Contemporary	About Zen Oleary Timeline (1943 - )
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Original Language English	A Language I Cannot Speak Without You
Commentary by Ivan M. Granger Themes   Birds   Honey   Sky   Sound   Water	There are earthquakes in me, shivers of anticipation, that disorient the day and send me stumbling to the edge of tomorrow. I shout your name across this abyss I cannot see and listen for incoming echoes. I wait for you like a seed waits for rain or a leaf thirsts for sunlight or a bird lusts for grubs. My eyes paint you in my mind, your image strung on banners streamed out of sky-writing planes, whorled in rising thunder clouds. I hear you in the graveled roars of truck engines, the growls of lions, the whispered buzz of bees. I feel you in my blood, my breath and the longing in my bones. You have infiltrated and overtaken me even in your absence till you've turned me into a language I cannot speak without you.
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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

Whew! I love the outpouring of words and images in Zen Oleary's poetry. There is something here that is breathless, even ecstatic... while, at the same time, remaining deeply rooted in the earth. A leaf "thirsts for sunlight" just as a bird "lusts for grubs" -- but it is the same passionate yearning for completion. And in the yearning's endless repetition through our own lives and the world's kaleidoscopic variety, we start to see it as a beautiful thing in itself; it is its own fulfillment.

You have infiltrated and overtaken me
even in your absence till
you've turned me into a language
I cannot speak without you.

Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.