Notes to Poem: Meditations on 43

NOTES TO POEM: MEDITATIONS ON 43

By Peter Y. Chou, WisdomPortal.com

Line in Poem	Literary Sources
O send out thy light and thy truth I am a flame, the son of a flame mounted upon thy chariot-seat— Let thy light come upon me.	King David, Psalms 43:3 (1000 BC) Egyptian Book of the Dead, Ch. 43 (1250 BC) Rig Veda, III. 43.1 (1500 BC) Pistis Sophia, Chapter 43 (circa 150 A.D.)
Conscious awareness of prayer on Pure One-without-a-second— Master supreme in all the worlds entering where there is no space.	Evagrios the Solitary, On Prayer, Text 43 (399 AD) Ashtavakra Gita, Chapter 18, Verse 43 (circa 400 B.C.) Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 43 (circa 200 BC) Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Verse 43 (517 BC)
Time is a restless flowing river see what is eternal and divine— in the celestial, nothing is ordinary! the lake has risen up to heaven	Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4:43 (180 AD) Book of Angelus Silesius, Page 43 (1677) Tung-fang Shuo, Ling Ch'i Ching, Trigraph 43 (222 AD) I Ching: Book of Changes, Hexagram 43 (1000 BC)
with eternal blessings granted— phenomena & Mind are one and the same The trees, the trees, holding to old holy ways. Trees, trees silent in a pact with each other.	Saint Anthony of Egypt, Character of Men, Text 43 (356 AD) Huang Po, Transmission of Mind, Record 43 (850 AD) Mary Oliver, Evidence, Poem 43 (2009) Tomas Tranströmer, Selected Poems, Poem 43 (1987)
Express more, love more I never can could smile upon the whole— You are whole— you are one Mystery behind unmanifest Nothing.	Emily Dickinson, New Poems, Poem 43 (1865) Emily Dickinson, Complete Poems Poem 43 (1859) Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets, Sonnet 43 (1960) Paul Brunton, Notebooks, Volume 16, 4.1.43 (1988)
I who sought on high for calm not even an hour of measurable time— From the beginning not a thing is there is no time, no space, no mind.	A.E., Song and Its Fountains, Page 43 (1932) Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, VII.43 (1923) Wei Wu Wei, Ask the Awakened, Chapter 43 (1963) Jack Kerouac, Sutra of the Golden Eternity, Verse 43 (1960)
Whirling, whirling, round, round— ceaseless action is the Universe. Do not do as you have always done, be in accord with the easy and simple	Su Tung-p'o, Selected Poems, Poem 43 (1074) Merrell-Wolff, Consciousness Without an Object, 43 (1973) Attar, Conference of the Birds, Ch. 43 (1221) Chang Tsai, "Corrrecting Ignorance" Section 43 (1077)
steps echoing from star to star Love is the great work— harvest beauty where it grows and sings an if of days to yes.	Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, Verse 43 (1912) Hafiz Poems of Hafiz, Verse 43 (1389) Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sonnet 43 (1941) e.e. cummings, 73 Poems, Poem 43 (1963)
The wind roars like thunder in spring, which have not seen the sun so rise after a goodnight's rave and rumble the sun shines... It looks beautiful out.	Wu Ch'eng-en, Journey to the West, Chapter 43 (1518) Lord Byron, Prisoner of Chillon, Line 43 (1816) James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Page 43 (1939) Kenneth Koch, Collected Poems, Poem 43 (2006)

Meditation Notes to Poem:

This poem was written for my niece Elisa's 43rd birthday on February 27, 2020.
For context of sources for the lines, consult my web page On Number 43 to see how this poem was constructed. Despite the difference in space and time of the composition of each line, what unites these writers quoted is the number 43.
Writer's words appeared in verse 43, sonnet 43, chapter 43, line 43, or page 43.
The poem was arranged essentially in chronological order from "O send out thy light"— Psalms 43:3 of King David (1000 B.C.) and "I am a flame, the son of a flame" in Egyptian Book of the Dead, Ch. 43 (1250 B.C.) to Mary Oliver's "The trees, the trees" from Poem 43 in Evidence (2009) and Kenneth Koch's "the sun shines...
It looks beautiful out" in Poem 43 of his Collected Poems (2006).