Brian Darnell -- Book signing for A Jewel in the Dust, Sheriar Bookstore -- November 19, 2011

The fire and the rose

The fire and the rose  

                                                                           

Eliot, a contemporary of Yours,

quoting Julian of Norwich –

And all manner of thing shall be well

(adding) -- when . . . the fire and the rose are one.

Getting into the rhythm of darshan,

flame of garland about Your throat,

like the pulling of oars,

the snaking queue

and the giving, the giving, the giving

in the heat and dust,

skin golden, sadra translucent;

the sea of fire and the lonely swimmer –

no shore visible in any direction . . .

and the rose of perfection,

the flame of longing – a culmination,

a melding in the heart’s furnace,

intersected and resurrected

in the body and being of the Godman

. . . and all shall be well

and all manner of thing shall be well.

O child of God, bewilderment, (literally – led

into the wilds) is a rare gift from Father to child.

                         

Your damaan

Your damaan

O Lord, whatever it takes.  I am holding onto You.

Through rough treatment, barren patches,

through episodes of almost unendurable intimacy,

I am holding onto You.

You broke open this heart of mine

and with Your lovely hands planted a seed.

I can feel it now taking root in my chest.

One day it will pin me to the earth

and a huge, sheltering tree will grow.

Then I might be worth something.

It’s cracking me open now,

letting in joy and pain and a great love.

I have the hem of that great love in my hands.

I can only imagine the height and breadth of it in the dark.

Stumbling along, as You twist, tug and sway me –

my whole world has become this grip on Your damaan.

O child of God, don’t get lost.  Hold on to Your Beloved

          tightly and mightily.

Get into the rhythm of His long, holy strides.

                                   (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

'54 DeSoto

’54 DeSoto

O Beloved, I was just a child

when You stole my heart from its crib.

That Thief went by an alias – Jesus of Nazareth.

“Never a man spake thusly . . . “

and I fell in love with Your poetry

and the drama of the first stone cast;

the water and the wine, the cross and the promised crown . . .

but, people in authority told lies and I believed them.

Their shouting drowned out Your interior voice.

I was lost for years, but You kept an eye on me.

The Buddha offered quietude and contemplation,

brown rice and tea,

but no one in the zendo ever mentioned Love.

Or Union.

That’s what all the fuss is about in Your silent ministry –

a Jesus-kind-of-Love and a Rendezvous.

The Great Redeemer, mustachioed and wearing a pink coat,

arrives in a ’54 DeSoto.

O Beloved, I’ve become a child again waving from the curb.

O child of God, Jesus opened the door; the eightfold path

merged into Meher’s fiery Ocean of Love.

                            (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

Cabbage leaves

Cabbage leaves                                                                             

Under a cabbage leaf, Father said

and the son believed him. 

He loves me too much,

the child reasoned, to tell a lie –

rousing the wonder of a rimy, autumn garden,

naked infant curled among the stalks and stems.

Thumbing now through God Speaks

and other unspoken words You left behind,

I wonder how many cabbage leaves

are enfolded among the bright pages.

Not that it matters.

It was never about hard facts with You,

but the gentle whisperings and gestures

of a son’s trust in his father, a father’s love for his son.

Inscrutable tales that quench,

yet prod and fire the groping soul

towards the coming of age,

when mind and tongue shall be stilled –

when Truth shall thoroughly own the man

and the child shall be no more.

O child of God, trust in the love of Meher

where all contradictions are reconciled.

                              

His majesty

His majesty                                   

Once an infidel, Your love evoked fidelity.

I’m faithful now, not to God, but to a human being

Who walked the path Jesus walked,

all the way to Golgotha.

But more intimate than that --

faithful to the One Who poured the wine

into my cup;

Who rested His hand on my shoulder;

Who gestured tenderly, “You belong to Me.”

I can’t reach beyond that form, that face and personality.

It’s self-serving and calculated -- I want to be You;

filled with Your Essence until nothing else remains.

O child of God, the Avatar is made of flesh and blood;

therein lies His majesty.                              

                                         (from A Jewel in the Dust)

The brash parrot

The brash parrot                                                                              

Inside a cage of bones, the brash parrot

waddles on its perch, a voluble green flame

shrieking and squalling, much to the delight of some

and to others, dismay, for so addled

and vulgar a creature to be declaiming,

in shrill mimicry, the Master’s wisdom.

But, those who consider the parrot’s words

mere exploitation, fail to grasp the true stature

of its wee, clamoring heart 

which, from the first encounter, registered

the import and majesty of the Master’s words

and forthwith caught fire, dedicating

its rather ludicrous, inadequate

apparatus of being to the continuous praise

and celebration of the Master’s perfect Truth

to anyone who will listen.  The particulars

the parrot may not fathom but the great gist

of the tale, its heart knows and owns and tirelessly repeats.

O child of God, speak with the impeccable authority

of your own unshakable faith in Meher Baba.

                                  

An angel-less God

An angel-less God                                                                         

Into the snowdrift I fall backwards

to make an angel, but

gazing into an endless sky –

the stars’ glitter,

the moon’s silent shifting,

cold earth against at my back,

I feel suddenly under the thumb

of an angel-less God,

overwhelmed by the travails

and duration of my soul’s exile

and how many more

arduous journey’s stretch before me

‘til the promised quenching,

rest and reunion.  Then,  

You hoist me to my feet. 

God’s shape, You say, is this shape –

pointing to the impression

my body has left in the snow. 

O pilgrim!  Our portion of infinity 
spans but fingertip to fingertip; 

the duration of our vigil measured 
by the heart's brief, pattering flurry.

Union may be far away but, God is close at hand --
nearer than our own clouded breaths. 

O child of God, surely angels hover everywhere

in the realm of Benevolence Eternal.

                     

The prayer of Immensity

The prayer of Immensity

I used to crawl through the Universal Prayer

on my hands and knees,

entering through a hatch

in the O before Parvardigar.

By lying flat, twisting myself here and there,

I could inch my way to the last word of worship.

But, one morning, midway through, I tripped

a hidden switch or brushed a secret lever,

or, perhaps ... it was the power of one word

spoken with heartfelt sincerity –

the whole prayer expanded to the dimensions

of the descriptions within it.

Not just the firmament and the depths,

but on all planes and beyond . . .

the three worlds and beyond . . .

the source of Truth, the Ocean of Love,

beyond and beyond and still yet beyond . . .

time and space, imagination and conception.

I found myself in an endless void as the words

of the prayer rose to my lips and faded in my ears.

O child of God, this is the prayer of Immensity –

the Immeasurable, the Unnamable and Incomprehensible. 

O child of God, recite faithfully the Universal Prayer.

It’s about you and who you really are.