Song link -- In that moment

In That Moment I knew                                                                   

C                       Bm                  C                     G

I climbed Your holy hill in the early morning sun.

C                Bm                            C+                         G

Inside that lovely Tomb I sat with You, my sweet Beloved One

C+                         G

Sweet Beloved One

Am                                  Em                       F                                  C

I heard You whisper my name        and your eyes looked deep into mine

F               C                     Dm                    G

And love pure love began to flow         like wine.

        Am                     Em                            F                           C

And in that moment I knew                 My heart belonged to You

F                                     C                         Dm     F        C

I pledged my life and my love             to Avatar Meher Baba.

C                            Bm          C                            G      

I’d followed You for years        studied Your every word

C                      Bm                       C+                                G   

But the music of Your love  somehow my heart had never really heard

C+                G

Never really heard.  

Am                                   Em                                F                                  C

Until You whispered my name             and Your eyes looked deep into mine

        F                C                    Dm                     G

And love, pure love began to flow              like wine.

        Am                      Em                      F                        C

And in that moment I gave                   my restless heart away

   F                                    C                            Dm    F        C

I pledged my life and my love             to Avatar Meher Baba.

In that moment

The inconvenience of words

The inconvenience of words                                                                  

Speak only when spoken to

the Silent One advises.

And, of what you hear –

take it on faith, until you finally

abandon that faith for a larger one.

Truth doesn’t come in bright boxes;

love doesn’t come entombed in the flesh;

happiness is not met demands,

nor sorrows avoided.

It’s not peace instead of pain

but surrender instead of everything else.

An island emerges in this life or another,

where truth is discovered, spoken, heard

beyond the inconvenience of words.

O child of God, no pouring of new wine into old skins,

nor the building of a new house on a rotting foundation.

Hopping a train

Hopping a train                                                                                

Lord, grant me a quick burst 

versus the slow gain

of speed in the short window,  

muscles versus steam,

hand on the handrail, eyeing the narrow

wrought iron steps; with long hapless strides,

a blast of the whistle, a fire in the chest,

a loose strain on the body, not knowing what waits

if I can haul myself aboard – just knowing,

I don’t want to be here anymore

and this train is pulling out.

Lord, grant me the strength,

picturing You somewhere

in a third class compartment

surrounded by the mandali and aware

of my efforts, yearnings and despair;

aware of and awaiting my fait accompli.

I’ve got fingers ‘round the jolting

rail of my salvation, as the train

pulls cumbrously, inexorably away.

O child of God, to join the New Life

you must leave behind the old life. 

                    

                     

Numerous explanations

Numerous explanations                                                                  

I should’ve learned something by now –

how to proceed; which neighborhoods 

to avoid, the shortcuts home.

All that beauty crowded into one evening,

one body, one humble gesture 

and I’m thrown out-of-kilter, a grave man

tearful, wishing I might let someone know

but, You’ve seen to that –

there’s never anyone to tell;

like the lover’s lips sealed 

so as not to let the smoke escape.

There are numerous explanations for this –

there always are – and I tend to use them,

going down the list before succumbing

to the last checked-off square

and ending up alone in my bed

with a book of prayers, exhausted by my own

configurations and convolutions,

wondering why and how I’ve lived so long

and accumulated such precious little wisdom.

O child of God, where will you hide? Life is

so often too lonely or, too lovely to bear.

                         

Enter the desert

Enter the desert                                                                               

Enter the desert a wanderer,

uncharted among the dunes,

under the stars; shaped by pressures

only hinted at, half-guessed,

gestured toward; suitable to your nature,

without respite, witness or glamour –

to be a lover is to go it alone.

Swaying upon the bridge, the temptress sings;

the sculptor at the monolith, hewing away.

Caught up in a terrible game of words,

the poet grapples for whatever

endurable term might bare

a slice of the loneliness

that constitutes a human heart.

Hewing away at it alone –

that’s what we are

and the truth of that

is the truth of God

to be elaborated upon,

the one and only Truth – God alone exists. 

O child of God, brave the lonely perils;

seek the truth of the One and Only. 

                     

                  

Make good

Make good                                                                                       

All my words hang on a promise I cannot make

and cannot keep – a vanity of imagination,

breath and blood, if the promise has no maker;

if the promise has no keeper.

Shall I continue, o Lord, to tap out

Your timeworn promise on my alphabet board?

Grace, love, salvation – fine sentiments! 

but, paper-thin words, and – through my throat –

without substance or luminosity;

indistinct stirrings in the half-light,

the nether-world, the darkness

of ignorance mixed with the darkness of faith;

yet, I praise the promise and the Promise-keeper!

Lord, don’t leave me

twisting wordlessly in the wind

at world’s end but, gather me sweetly

in Your arms and make good, make good,

make good Your ancient-given promise.

O child of God, what the Beloved requires of you

is faith, forbearance, obedience and attempted artistry.

                             

God's long shadow

God’s long shadow                                                                         

Do not make the dead unhappy,

Baba scolded, by your weeping and wailing.

Another journey awaits us, o pilgrim,

through the broken gate, the unkempt garden.

Death walks this fine morning in God’s

long shadow – efficient, indefatigable servant.

Even Jesus died and those He detached

from Death’s arm, soon returned,

dutifully to resume their coupled trailing 

through the lily-rucked garden,

the rank and dew-drenched garden –

the body of Jamshed

arranged in the Tower of Silence

and the Master distributing sweet laddoos.

O pilgrim, loosen your grip on the flesh

long before Death offers his arm,

while Beauty’s ghosts yet linger,

where the apparent loss shall be suffered. 

Jamshed was my brother, Meher averred,

but I am Jam Sheth – Death’s Master. 

Death has brought Jamshed to Me.

O child of God, living is dying by loving.

Only the truly dead are beyond Death’s grasp.

                       

The prayer

The prayer                                                                                       

The praying is the prayer.

The heart’s articulacy is the prayer;

 

kneeling and the folding of hands.

Our nakedness and need is the prayer –

from that first disintegrating morning,

ages past, ‘til this evening’s calm, gathering dusk,

our nakedness and need is the prayer 

but, o pilgrims, only a handful,

the truest heroes of our farthest-fetched tales

ever dare quiet their souls

long enough to listen for God’s reply –

to risk hearing the answer

roll across God’s vast dominion

or, well up, unsheltered, in the hollows of the heart;

to risk hearing not the Word nor Silence,

but a terrifying, unequivocal Absence.

O child of God, risk all for the courage

to learn the truth of God’s love.

                              

  

A hint of why

A hint of why                                                                                    

The Ocean has come again 

to tell us we are not adrift;

more like a river, running towards

and away, of urgency and purpose;

the Ocean has come again,

to tell us we are not islands –

embracing, sighs and gazes,

the wiping away of tears.

The Ocean, labyrinths

of Love and endeavor,

vast, breathless depths,

come again

  

to tell us we have no shore,

strongest evidence to the contrary;

no beginning nor end; enemies

and companions – our very own Self.

The Ocean has come again

to tell us our loneliness

is but a bitter-tinged drop

in the immeasurable loneliness of God.

O child of God, such an import offers a hint

of why Meher lived in silence.