flying fishes

Where is the origin,
if not in sleep,

The whale was
a shimmering sound
deep deep in the sea,
sleeping, dreaming.

I heard a monotonous
murmur, there was
this grid of lullaby sound
in the silence of the ocean

And then a need for air
and we rose with bubbles
into the cold waves,
white under the moon

splashing and blowing
sucking the joy of air
into three thousand litres
of lung, pure power

then tail fin up,

diving, leaving

me to see the sky

filled with flying fishes

and in the blue dawn

of infinite horizons,

i swim for my boat,

happy, half asleep

The travels of Marco Polo, Two islands called Male and Female

well, another source of wisdom as may be found in many old customs allover

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Travels_of_Marco_Polo/Book_3/Chapter_31

Discourseth of the Two Islands Called Male and Female, and Why They Are So Called

When you leave this kingdom of Kesmacoran, which is on the mainland, you go by sea some 500 miles towards the south; and then you find the two Islands, MALE and FEMALE, lying about 30 miles distant from one another. The people are all baptized Christians, but maintain the ordinances of the Old Testament; thus when their wives are with child they never go near them till their confinement, or for forty days thereafter.

In the Island however which is called Male, dwell the men alone, without their wives or any other women. Every year when the month of March arrives the men all set out for the other Island, and tarry there for three months, to wit, March, April, May, dwelling with their wives for that space. At the end of those three months they return to their own Island, and pursue their husbandry and trade for the other nine months.

They find on this Island very fine ambergris. They live on flesh and milk and rice. They are capital fishermen, and catch a great quantity of fine large sea-fish, and these they dry, so that all the year they have plenty of food, and also enough to sell to the traders who go thither. They have no chief except a bishop, who is subject to the archbishop of another Island, of which we shall presently speak, called SCOTRA. They have also a peculiar language.

As for the children which their wives bear to them, if they be girls they abide with their mothers; but if they be boys the mothers bring them up till they are fourteen, and then send them to the fathers. Such is the custom of these two Islands. The wives do nothing but nurse their children and gather such fruits as their Island produces; for their husbands do furnish them with all necessaries.

Give me strength, Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

Give Me Strength

This is my prayer to thee, my lord—-strike,
strike at the root of penury in my heart.

Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

Poesia da Semana: Soneto de Fidelidade (Vinícius de Moraes)

De tudo ao meu amor serei atento
Antes, e com tal zelo, e sempre, e tanto
Que mesmo em face do maior encanto
Dele se encante mais meu pensamento.

Quero vivê-lo em cada vão momento
E em seu louvor hei de espalhar meu canto
E rir meu riso e derramar meu pranto
Ao seu pesar ou seu contentamento

E assim, quando mais tarde me procure
Quem sabe a morte, angústia de quem vive
Quem sabe a solidão, fim de quem ama

Eu possa me dizer do amor (que tive):
Que não seja imortal, posto que é chama
Mas que seja infinito enquanto dure.