Don't You think it's time
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Too much like death
Too much like death
You lived in silence.
I can’t abide it.
Too much like death.
Even while
lying motionless and mute in the casket
You’ve so lovingly fashioned for me,
my mind is stubbornly shouting blasphemies,
roaming the known parameters.
I climbed in willingly enough.
Made myself comfortable.
I don’t regret it. But, this protracted interment
is as stylized and boring as any funeral ever was
and still I haven’t the courage
to clamp down the lid long enough
for You to sink the nails.
You came not to teach but to awaken.
Lucky for me – because I never seem to learn.
And, instead of holding on to Your damaan,
being dragged pell-mell into the Infinite-Eternal,
I hold tightly to the ragged shirttail
I hold tightly to the ragged shirttail
of this wanton, roaring world; the sad
and flustered illusion of my false self.
O child of God, hold your tongue and let
Meher’s silence become your last triumphant shout.
Assortment of blessings
Assortment of blessings
A lover arriving from the west, the end
of her long quest to meet the Beloved.
Tomorrow, You
said; Eruch protesting –
she’s come so far; she
so wants to see You.
Tomorrow, You
said, she will want
to see Me even
more.
In the assortment of blessings You give
is the longing to see You even more –
a fiery, chafing treasure, at times, requiring You
to give nothing or, even, take away.
I squander that treasure daily on heart-strangers
with little or nothing left for the Giver.
I come knocking on Your door, waiting to be
granted admission and are ever turned away,
having not accumulated enough pure longing
to be ushered into Your welcoming arms.
O child of God, the blessings of your Beloved
are dissimilar to the blessings of the world.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Song link -- I heard You call my name
I heard You call my name
I heard You call my name and I turned to find You standing there
G A D G
and through the tears that came I gazed upon Your form as much as I dared
Em A G A
then I pledged to follow You to love and obey
D G D G Em D
and I don’t know how this faithless world keeps getting in my way
D G A D
I heard You call my name and I spied You there among the crowd
G A D G
when Your eyes met mine I could not help but cry Your name aloud
Em A G A
so many strangers between us getting in my way
D G D G Em D
and I don’t know how this faithless world keeps leading me astray
G A D G A D
O my time will come. One day those veils will part.
G A D G
You’ll call my name, You’ll call my name
Em A
and I’ll answer You with all of my heart
G A D G A D
O my time will come. One day you’ll give the Word
G A D G
and I’ll leave everything, O I’ll leave everything
Em D
to follow You, follow You, my Lord
D G A D
I heard You call my name standing atop a distant hill
G A D G
and I ran to meet You but when I looked again You were farther still
Em A G A
and I longed to follow You and leave straightaway
D G D G Em D G
(1) and I don’t know how this faithless world keeps leading me astray
D G D G Em D G
(2) I don’t know how this heartless world keeps getting in my way (repeat 1)
Wrens and sparrows
Wrens and sparrows
I write my poetry on a crust of bread
I found in the bottom of my pouch,
dropping crumbs along the path
for the wrens and sparrows.
I won’t be coming back
this way and no one will follow
into this particular plot of trees.
The woods are deep. I’ll
write
as long as the light holds out.
God illumines the path
only one step at a time
and my own torch has been thrown down.
It’s like a crust of bread –
the moon above the horizon.
My mortal existence is a crust of bread.
This poem is dedicated
to the wrens and sparrows.
I wish I had more to give.
O child of God, venture where there is blitheness
in dissolution; unalloyed bliss in obliteration.
Joy in the pain
Joy in the pain
It happened again – the path
disappeared beneath my feet.
Where is there to stand
in this ephemeral, illusory world?
No solidity, no weight –
no purpose or meaning.
Then, why not float
through, my Lord asks,
light and free as a
feather?
Because of the pain, I answer.
There’s joy – but, always, pain.
There is pain even in the joy
but never joy in
the pain.
That’s why I’ve come,
my Lord said.
To bring you joy in
the pain.
O child of God, live for your Beloved
and become the purpose you seek.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Journeyman's cloak
Journeyman’s cloak
Long you have wandered the desert.
Enter now the palace of the King.
His only requirement –
remove your filthy coat.
Possessions, He does not demand,
nor the servitude of your body;
nor must the torch of your wisdom
and awareness be extinguished.
He demands only that illusory cloak
to which you so fanatically cling, be shed –
your journeyman’s cloak,
ragged, encrusted, malodorous –
cloak of foreign alliance, of feigned separation;
cloak of provisional power and false dominion.
The King and the desert await you, pilgrim,
on either hand. It’s
your decision to make.
O child of God, the bargain was struck ages ago.
Take it now . . . or leave it.
Borrowed clay
Borrowed clay
There’s a path which must be walked.
There’s no choice about it; no turning back.
A footbridge to be crossed –
high, narrow, pendulous; a candle
held before the chest, cupped hand
and cautious steps protecting its flame.
In the heart, there’s a wine cup, brimful,
to be balanced precisely
lest a drop spills in vain.
There’s a prayer –
heartfelt, word for word -- which must be said
as the candle is protected and the cup is balanced;
a silence to be kept intact as the prayer is recited
and the cup is balanced, the candle protected –
a silence pure, immense as the silence
Meher left after returning the borrowed clay.
And there are various outward,
karmic circumstances which must come together
like stars in alignment and agreement.
Footbridge, candle,wine cup, prayer,
silence, stars and circumstance . . . .
karmic circumstances which must come together
like stars in alignment and agreement.
Footbridge, candle,wine cup, prayer,
silence, stars and circumstance . . . .
O child of God, there is more to the path
the farther along you go.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Fishes and loaves
Fishes and loaves
It’s not like baking bread
from grannie’s recipe or shaping
and assembling furniture.
It’s more like the tracking of a deer
or catching a fish – the application
of a randomly accumulated expertise,
recognizing favorable conditions,
combing likely environs.
It’s like the setting of a hook,
the ensuing improvisation,
gauging the familiar give and take
before landing the prize.
And then, maybe, offering it to the fisher of men,
Who, along with some of those methodically
baked loaves, may use it to feed the multitudes
or, maybe, not. It’s
no concern of mine,
lying belly full on a hillside, drowsy with wine,
my allotment taken off the top,
my Beloved’s form in full view,
His voice a sweetness in my ears.
O child of God, be ever vigilant for bread, wine
and that sudden, sharp tug upon the line.
Your silent veracity
Your silent veracity
Images flow from Your hands
through the medium of silence
to impress, expose and illustrate
the nothingness of the dream
while I hurry down a different road,
trusting to the flesh of the heart
and other charlatans and infidels
in this world of sham and glamour.
The truth of Your eloquence
(some forty-four years of exquisite silence)
becomes, in these latter years,
more acutely precise, glaringly apparent
in the light of Your beauty, purity
and Your ceaseless, silent veracity.
O child of God, as Truth is beyond words,
so Illusion is beyond any substance or sustenance.
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