Saturday, December 1, 2012

Pilamai's chair

Pilamai’s chair 

You threw Pilamai’s chair from the moving train
when she refused to occupy it in Your stead.

You revere your feelings of shame, You said,
more than me.  Yes, Beloved, more than You,

I revere the shame of my flesh,
the impertinence of my doubts,

the usurpation of my thoughts and will.
How could it be otherwise?

I have not already surrendered them to You.
For that I am deeply ashamed 

and cling to my shame and not to You.
The great gulf between us is filled with small things –

the petty, the furtive, the vain and paltry. 
What is my life that I should value it?

What would it have been without You?
Dying to shameful desires, I would be Yours

and with You, inseparable, non-dual
and other facile attempts at description

of that which the tongue, eye and ear
are incapable of bearing.

O child of God, the Beloved demands absolute
obedience ... for your glory, for your emancipation.

                             

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