A horse-hooved knowledge

Horse-hooved knowledge 

A lifetime of wandering here and there
among the trees looking for the forest.
 
A plastic sequin on a cheap gown –
such it is that snags the mind –
 
spangles not only worthless but pernicious
for they divert us from the real and the true.
 
At ocean’s shore the galloping horse stumbles,
unable to enter deeply where it can neither
 
stand nor swim or float; rear or whinny –
do anything other than drown
 
in wild, flaring confusion.  We cling
to the shore and the horse that got us there. 
 
Numerous lifetimes it takes to know
we do not know, can never know
 
anything of the ocean, anything of where
the horse is a foreign, ineffectual creature;
 
anything but the dust-ridden,
horse-hooved knowledge
 
that keeps us ever on the scent, ever
following one false trail after another.
 
O child of God, the mind reigns in duality
but can never leave itself to reach beyond.

 

There is a crushing

 There is a crushing                                                                                              

“How do I escape suffering, Lord”,
 And He gave me an answer (though I am reluctant to hear). 

 

It seems there is a crushing and a transfiguration. 
Grain becomes bread; grapes become wine,

then upon our tongues and in our throats, 
we partake of the body and blood of Christ.  

There’s no rescue (praise God for that, He tells me),
only endurance and culmination;
 
the end of hope and then, an awakening.
Only a trust in the process,

 

in the necessity and the outcome; 
Faith in love, in the Maker and the Father.
 
All shall be well (He revealed to one lover, centuries ago).
All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
 
O child of God, request not rescue
but solace, strength and conviction.

This odd pitch of clay

This odd pitch of clay (birthday poem)                                                            

I’m carrying a torch for You.
I have used it to explore and experience
 
Your creatures and creation
and to search (ironically) for the Light
 
I once mistook for my own –
the Light that is You.
 
This odd pitch of clay will nevermore return. 
It is God Who will take another body.
 
There’s only God.  And as I labor now
to keep aloft, alight, this torch in my last days,
 
I find that I’m carrying it for You, carrying
a shimmering, splintered portion of You
 
back toward the foundry of creation –
toward that inevitable reunion
 
of You with Yourself –
the origin of fire and light.
 
O child of God, you are but a brief spark
from the forge and hammer of the Creator.

That clear still center

That clear still center                                                                                

If I had my way, I’d never come back

to another lifetime of sin and ignorance,

causing pain and harm to myself and others.

But that’s no virtue –

not wanting to cause suffering.  

It’s just another desire – the root of suffering,

the barrier to surrender and non-return. 

In the realm of illusion

where might pure virtue be found?

Purity has nothing to do with perfection.

It has to do, apparently, with getting off the wheel

onto that clear still center even as

the rest of the world shakes and gyres,

rattles and quakes, wavers around you.

If I had my way, I’d never come back

but then – it’s never been about me having my way.

O child of God, round and round and round you go,

too drunk to find your way off the dance floor.