Notes to Poem: Meditations on 45

NOTES TO POEM:

Meditations on 45: Quieter than Sleep

By Peter Y. Chou, WisdomPortal.com

Line in Poem	Literary Sources
Bring great offerings creates good fortune: Practice thoroughly, meditate on them well— Everything. Your veins flowed with being. Keep your mind crystal clear.	King Wen, I Ching Hexagram 45 (1000 BC) Pythagoras, Golden Verses, Verse 45 (500 BC) Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, VII.45 (1923) Lao Tzu, Hua Hu Ching, Verse 45 (circa 517 BC)
I form the light, and create darkness, people praise me for ever and ever. My illusions are sweeter than truth— Shadows here are deep with no voice.	Isaiah: Ch. 45.7 (712 BC) King David, Psalms 45.17 (1023 BC) A.E., Song and Its Fountains, p. 45 (1932) Tomas Tranströmer, Half-Finished Heaven, Poem 45 (1987)
Step out of time, enter God's eternity— divinity within me, serene and content, perfection finding joy in my work, without sincerity there will be nothing.	Book of Angelus Silesius, Page 45 (1677) Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8:45 (180 AD) Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, Verse 45 (400 B.C.) Ch'eng Hao, Selected Sayings, Section 45 (1085)
Where dwells that Supreme Spirit?— shine forth with splendor of wisdom from morning until the evening, true fullness is fully present.	Kabir, 100 Poems of Kabir, Poem XLV (1518) Marsilio Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, Letter 45 (1490) Pistis Sophia, Chapter 45 (150 AD) Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Verse 45 (517 BC)
I walk over the grass, watching the morning glory, look at the grass through the forest path he comes, comes, soft summer wind blew in light green trees.	Robert Bly, Stealing Sugar from the Castle, Poem 45 (1974) Mary Oliver, Evidence, Poem 45 (2009) Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, Verse 45 (1912) Kenneth Koch, Collected Poems, Poem 45 (2006)
Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare in a mountain temple in the quiet night, flowers in a wood where nobody goes, lonely flowers dark in the evening.	St. Vincent Millay, Sonnet 45 (1922) Seung Sahn, Whole World Is A Single Flower, Koan 45 (1992) Robert Creeley, Selected Poems, 1945-2005, Poem 45 (1959) Su Tung-p'o, Poem 45 (1074)
Pure sky, level sand in the distance— cloudless sky for ten thousand miles, there is nothing new under the sun— come back into fullness of everything.	Walt Whitman, "Passage to India", Line 45 (1871) Wu Ch'eng-en, Journey to the West, Vol. 2, Ch. 45 (1518) Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 45 (1851) Master Subramuniya, Merging into Siva, Lesson 45 (1999)
A person looks, the blossoms look back: Though they were seemly to be seen— Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, sunlight and singing welcome your coming.	Sun Bu-er, Women in Praise of the Sacred, Poem 45 (1124) Pearl Poet, Pearl, Line 45 (1400) Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets, (1960) e. e. cummings, 95 Poems, Poem 45 (1958)
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep, there's something quieter than sleep— wells within us far, far too deep— for here is Being without end.	William Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey", Line 45 (1798) Emily Dickinson, Poem 45 (1859) Hafiz, "The Gift", Poem 45 (1389) Paul Brunton, Notebooks, Volume 16, Part 4, (2:45) (1988)

Meditation Notes to Poem:

This poem was written for my niece Elisa's 45th birthday on February 27, 2022.
For context of sources for the lines, consult my web page On Number 44 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 45.
Writer's words appeared in verse 45, sonnet 45, chapter 45, line 45, or page 45.
The poem was arranged essentially in chronological order from "Bring great offerings" in Hexagram 45 of King Wen's I Ching of King David (1023 B.C.)
and "I form the light in Isaiah 45.7 (712 B.C.) to Mary Oliver's "morning glory,
look at the grass" from Poem 45 in Evidence (2009) and Kenneth Koch's "soft summer wind" in Poem 45 of his Collected Poems (2006).