Tuesday, August 11, 2015

the secret


I have a secret which I have learned how to read inside myself; if I told it to you, it would make you laugh.My heart is naked and no one can put clothes on it,  and nothing can be put on that will not immediately fall off. My secret is ignorant,    it doesn’t sing songs, no lie, it has nothing to tell you. My two eyes are maps of the planet— I see everything and nothing upsets me.
…
besides being no one,    know that I am you    and everybody.
~Thomas Merton, excerpted from “The Secret”
…the lines that touched my heart deeply…(Photo by Marciej Duczynski)



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Since I am
Somebody’s dream,
I have a good life.

Sometimes I go away in my sailboat on a cloud
and take a quiet little trip.
I have a secret
which I have learned how to read inside myself;
if I told it to you,
it would make you laugh.

My heart is naked
and no one can put clothes on it,   
and nothing can be put on
that will not immediately fall off.

My secret is ignorant,   
it doesn’t sing songs,
no lie,
it has nothing to tell you.

My two eyes
are maps of the planet—
I see everything
and nothing upsets me.

Just now
I was in China
and saw there a great piece of happiness   
that belonged to one man.

And I have been to the center of the earth,   
where there is no suffering.

If on your loneliest nights,   
I visit other planets
and the most secret stars of all,

besides being no one,   
know that I am you   
and everybody.

But if I go away
without giving you a name to remember me with,
how will I find
the right dream to return to?

You won’t have to mark down
on your calendar that I am coming back;   
don’t bother to write me into your notebooks.   
I will be around
when you aren’t thinking about me,

without hair or a neck,   
without a nose and cheeks   
no reputation—
there won’t be anything.

I am a bird   
which God made.


–Thomas Merton



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