The Reality of which we are made

The Reality of which we are made
 
God alone is real (said my Lord).
Which means . . . we are not.
 
Wrinkles in the holy fabric are we;
waves upon the sea; clouds upon the ether.
 
We are the wind-shape of the dunes,
a burl in the bark; a hitch in the stream;
 
a speck of dust on the mirrored glass. 
How holy!  How precious and precise are we!  

Like the Reality
of which we are made.
 
O child of God, what is the worth of that
          which comes and goes?
Only its connection to the Everlasting.

The usual suspects

The usual suspects
 
My youth corrupted by the usual suspects;
the sprouting of tainted seeds already there.
 
I long ago stepped out into the weather,
trudged from past to present,
 
from fear to faith, from who I am
to Whom God has made and is yet making,
 
kenning with more clarity the transformation
and crediting more precisely from Whom it comes.
 
What does it matter if the poet
can’t find the proper descriptions
 
rummaging through his time-worn journals?
Truth is not found on ink-stained paper.
 
This poetry is assembled
one image at a time
 
as the light above blinks on and off;
faithfully transcribed until my pen runs out of ink.
 
O child of God, what a hodgepodge
of images from an age-encumbered mind.  

Getting wise

Getting wise 

People are getting wise to me now. 
Something a charlatan always dreads.  
 
My isolation and eccentricity and the reasons for it,
more evident, even to myself.  It doesn’t matter, does it? 
 
Nothing matters (said my Lord) but love for God. 
Nothing matters but that which I scantily possess,
 
too little to hoard, none to share and no way to obtain.
So I bow helplessly, (not quite hopelessly) before my Lord,
 
renouncing with throat and tongue, (if not mind and heart)
the very things I sought out of fear when I began this quest,
 
substituting now acquiescence for effort;
faith for hope; fealty for love.
 
O child of God, pledge your life to the one true Friend
not as an investment but as His irrefutable due.

The remote promise

The remote promise                                                                                    

It doesn’t take much to become dust.

I mean, it’s not like you start out a hero.

You have not to yield anything of real value.

Not a sacrifice really but the overseeing of a collapse.

It takes obstinacy, mind you, an obsessive vigilance;

persistence through constant failure;

a disheartening familiarity

with your own depthless inadequacy;

faith in the remote promise of a distant victory

constructed upon utter defeat.      

But what else is there to do when your Beloved

rouses in you the first inchoate stirrings of humility?

When He speaks of love and you discover your poverty,

your heart aloof and non-comprehending?  

What else to do with the shame from a lifetime

of duplicity, mistrust and a dearth of pity?

What else to do when your effort might bring

a brief smile, a nod of the head from your Lord

while you both wait for the one miracle

He promised He has come to perform?

O child of God, what else on God’s green earth

has more value than the dust gathered at Meher’s feet?