On giving and generosity...

On giving and generosity...
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."

Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.

Perhaps love is not as complicated a thing as we make it. Perhaps it's not the modern 50-50 proposition it has become... Where each does his share to make the whole.

What if I gave all that I had? What if I gave 100% not the half I thought was my obligation?

Is that the point of this poem? That giving isn't attached to the outcome? In any way? That if I am giving a dollar to someone on the street it doesn't matter what the person does with the dollar; what matters is the giving... And I don't give a dollar because of what I anticipate the person will do with it than it's me that needs to reorder my thoughts on giving?

And in a relationship if I am withholding because I feel the other person is withholding is that just a justification? Is that just a way for me to be 'right'? And so what? What will being right get me?

Perhaps you can only stand in warmth and brightness when you fully give of yourself first.


Hafez (or Hafiz) was a great Persian mystic and poet. He influenced many Western poets including Emerson who said "Hafiz is a poet for poets"

This is a photograph I took in Cape May, NJ, Winter 2008. I went to the beach at night and waited until dawn to take the picture. It was cold, so cold that night. Until the sun came over the horizon and lit the sky.