Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
Translated by Coleman Barks
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Kening’s notes
This is a poem about union, intimacy, and feeling a sense of belonging in the world — in relation to another, to oneself, and to the spirit of life. I think it’s one of those poems worth memorizing, and carrying with us wherever we go.