How the Narrow Encompasses

On one of the listservs to which I subscribe there has been some discussion of Ryokan’s lovely poem, which, in Abe & Haskel’s translation goes

If my arms draped in these black robes
Were only wide enough
How gladly would I shelter in them
All the people of this floating world

Somehow for me this verse sparked a recollection of Emily Dickinson

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer house than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of Eye –
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
for Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –

There is a vow

it requires no robes, black or otherwise

but make it

and within a heartbeat, “if only” becomes just wide enough to encompass the whole world