Song link -- The only path

https://soundcloud.com/ghamela-yoga/the-only-path

Drawing by Rich Panico

A further roughening

A further roughening

Longing begins when that thin layer of ice
burns the skin down through to muscle and bone.

Strain at the tether long enough, 
the strain itself becomes the tether --

looseness binds; delight chafes;
time issues yet a further

tumbling and roughening;
freedom begets a vapid, lonely inertia.

The ache for release, eyes scrubbed by tears,
and the lock's key becomes the fiery ache.

O!  Rough and vast is the pitching ocean,
the true course straight and narrow.

I can't hold the wheel!  Lord!
I can't hold the wheel!  Come!

Lend Your shoulder; apply Your will.
Lord, come.  I can't hold the wheel.

O child of God, let barriers and encumbrances
become the means of propulsion and velocity.

                         

The LePages visit Athens

 Bill and Diana LePage

                                                Lilly Finch and Odette

                                                  Bill and Diana

 

Debbie Finch and Amy Steele

Crooners Perry and Rick Flynn, Trudy Budd

 

Tamar, Bill and Caleb

Uncut wood

Uncut  wood                                                                                   

Be as humble, Lao Tzu advised, as uncut wood. 

Too late for most.  We’ve already carved ourselves up –

rasped and whittled, painted and pasted over

to make our shape and image

acceptable to the world –

lovable, respectable . . . exceptional!

O!  The pain involved now in the slicing through,

the paring down below the acquired ornamentation,

every cut by our blade, a further disfigurement;

never to reclaim the purity and authenticity

of the original grain.  Weather me, Lord! 

Over the aeons, down to the essence –

by the elements – as I cede and acquiesce,

mourn and pray for humility –

not the original, guileless condition –

but the humility of helplessness and futility,

the inability, in this lifetime, to recover

an innocence so irretrievably lost.

O child of God, return to your original state

by the grace and dharma of the Beloved.

                         

First comes the kiss

First comes the kiss

Savor the wine before it's gone.
Drain your cup to the bitter lees.
First comes the kiss then, the stone.

The silver cup, dry as bone;
exaltation -- mere memories.
Savor the wine before it's gone!

By such indulgences is work postponed
required to set us free.
First comes the kiss then, the stone --

the Polestar glimpsed, (briefly shone)
before storms roil the night and sea.
Savor the wine before it's gone.

The bright blade of discernment honed;
His sword fashioned into a key.
First comes the kiss then, the stone.

Praise conveyed by a pilgrim's groan --
love brings everyone to their knees.
Savor the wine before it's gone.
First comes the kiss then, the stone.

                    (Unpublished)

Random photos 2

Lake Eden Arts Festival

Keilayn at Dupont State Park, NC

Thomas Wolfe House -- Asheville, NC

High Falls, Dupont State Park, NC

The Darnell Boys in concert

Eruch

I'm not the man -- performed by Brian

Thin-skinned heart

Thin-skinned heart                                                                       

You say, Don’t try to understand Me. 

Good advice, since You don’t  

quite make sense, that is to say,

nothing seems to fit and You,

of course, are everything

but, every so often You send me off

on an analytical jag, knowing

I’ll come back around because

my thoughts always lead me in circles.

It’s about time, this time;

inevitability and purpose, distance

and proximity and the ubiquitous

reality of non-significance while never leaving,

mind You, the confines of my thick skull,

never venturing near the love-strapped,

thin-skinned heart I bear inside

until I am, at last, back on Your stoop,

knocking on Your door and being let in

graciously, mercifully, as I fall in timeless,

eternal repetition, at the unfathomable,

beyond imagination and conception, illusion

of Your body and Your holy, human feet.

O child of God, one significant allurement of faith

is the lack of any coherent alternative.

A gold coin

A gold coin

You asked me to follow You.
Like Jonah, there were places I'd rather be.

The belly of a fish can be made comfortable
if the foreign shore holds enough dread --

darkness can be soothing to the eyes;
that constant stench can carry

the solace of familiarity.
You said, 'Get naked.'  When I didn't

shed my clothes quickly enough,
You took matters into Your own hands.

These days, I go about repeating Your name
like hammering nails into a coffin.

Make me a gold coin, Lord, glittering in the sunlight,
when You finally slit the fish's belly.

O child of God, the Beloved is pointing out,
with His graceful fingers, the land of milk and honey.

                         (from A Jewel in the Dust)