The end of my eternity

The end of my eternity

Since my Beloved told me I am an eternal being,
much of the old urgency has fallen away.
 
Since I stopped believing in myself,
ceased rattling my karmic chains,
 
played my hunch on the law of must,
time matters little to me now.
 
Wherever it is I’m bound, God will get around to it,
my arrival as precisely orchestrated as the flight of stars.
 
How could it be otherwise under His exacting command?
If I’ve misjudged my position there will be
 
an abundance of time to correct the error.
What’s a few more centuries plastered on
 
to the end of my eternity?
Or an additional allotment
 
of illusory binding and suffering
before my fated release into the infinite sea of bliss?
 
O child of God, time is naught when the heart
becomes fixed upon the eternal now.

 (drawing by Rich Panico)

The old P.C.

The old P.C.
 
You invited me to walk with You
up the hill to the Tomb.
 
I’ve spent the last thirty years
trying to lace up my shoes.
 
It’s difficult when you’re drunk
on the world’s wine
 
and the ground keeps
shifting under your feet.
 
I’ve lost my bearings again
beneath an endless blue sky
 
as the hot winds rattle the wilted neems.
The cool stone images
 
of the Samadhi’s interior beckon me,
but I am heat-weary and sleepy
 
for my next nap and the sunlight
is dazzling beyond the shaded eaves.
 
O child of God, how infinitely patient is the Master,
waiting you out on the veranda of the old P.C.  

(Painting by Mark Hodges)

     

Toward a graveyard silence

Toward a graveyard silence                                                   

Even in a choir these days you can always tell

which throat is mine – it’s the one

shot through with an arrow

(like the piercing of a heart)

thick with blood, sounding less and less true,

moving toward a graveyard silence.

I’m tired of singing, of telling, advocating,

arguing.  Only my mind still wants to argue.

My hands are done with finger-pointing;

my heart weary of rebuttals.

(To disagree is so . . . disagreeable!)

My eyes want only to read –

read the hearts of others and find them free

of any blame or error on my account.

O child of God, how peaceful it is when your heart

goes for a long, brave ride and your mind takes a backseat.

In God we trust

In God we trust                                                                                         

The sea-knowledge of the onetime fisherman

drained his faith and sank Peter short

of reaching Jesus as he walked the pitching sea;

kept the others frightened aboard,

entreating their Savior, yet trusting instead

a makeshift construct to keep them afloat.

But it was Jesus who lifted Peter from the brine,

subdued the storm and brought the ship to shore.

In God we trust . . . there’s no one else –

save our treacherous selves.

Everything is true and congruent to the whole

except our separateness.  The one false thing

(never to be trusted) – our erroneous faith

in ourselves and who we take ourselves to be.

O child of God, the construct of the false self

is the source of an ocean of suffering.