A journeyman’s hands
Francis said as stone into dust –
long to be crushed!
The duty of the lover is to sing
his Beloved’s gift of song;
articulate the pain in the distance
between mouth and Ear;
between heart and Heart
solely for the Beloved’s
amusement and entertainment.
Sing, o lover! a reminder of the
day,
when you’ll bear no song,
no mouth and no need of one –
being, at last, the unutterable Truth.
That’s the promise Francis clutched
in a journeyman’s hands;
sang with wine-bright eyes
through an old man’s broken throat –
a gift for his Beloved and for His lovers
gathered near and soon to follow
that bowed, dusty codger into oblivion.
O child of God, begin your apprenticeship as a lover
under that old Aussie ploughman stone mason poet.
The one gauge
Just love Me, my Lord said.
Perhaps His only request.
Love for love’s sake – without hope
of gain, advantage or favor.
There is a dearth in my heart of such love.
And fear growing rank.
The best I might give, Lord, is gratitude
which I have come by honestly –
in response to Your kindness.
Gratitude for the life I’ve led
and for the life You led.
Gratitude for a family and my imperfect love
for all their human beauty.
And gratitude especially for You, Lord,
being indeed my only source of truth,
however ill at times I receive it,
the one gauge in this troubled dreamscape
I trust and cling to, without which
I would have long ago become untethered,
alone, overwhelmed and lost.
O child of God, not knowing what love is,
how can you judge your lack of it?
Monk’s garden
Somehow it’s good to know I haven’t a prayer.
Like old Job – no say-so in the winding up,
the unwinding of my own affairs.
God is in the details and I’m merely one,
hoping to serve by a studious abstention.
I weed my monk’s garden, encouraged
by the yield of abeyance and abrogation.
The old urgency has deserted my legs and lungs
in mid-stride and the pace, this late
in the game, has slowed considerably;
enough to where it’s more comfortable
to take His hand and follow His lead;
relinquish a bit more the irresistible
compulsion and illusion of plotting my own course.
O child of God, settle in as best you might
under the vast foot of the elephant.
(photo by Bif Soper)
Rumi’s field
Rumi’s field – beyond ideas
of wrong-doing and right-doing –
is not so far away.
I’m running my hand
along the top of its fence. It was
never
a great distance to traverse
but a coming to a halt,
turning the handle
and swinging wide the gate.
No one to meet me there but myself,
unencumbered of my knothole view,
my prejudices and opinions.
Ah, to lie down burden-free
in that long grass with the wildflower scent
in the sun-warmed field, upheld
and surrendered like a body on the ocean face
letting the current move me where it will.
It’s so near, just over the fence,
and I won’t leave here without a fight
or until I find a way through its summoning gate.
O child of God, not far away nor far in the future.
Seek advice from your constant Companion.
