Synonymous with mercy

Synonymous with mercy                                                                         

I’m saying Your name more lately –

a name synonymous with mercy.

You advocate measures I dare not undertake.

Point in directions I dare not go.

I say Your name because

I have not yet become Your slave.

I’m a loose cannon; I hide and loiter

in the wilds beyond Your gate,  

without the courage or strength to commit myself

to Your discipline and Your cause.

I say Your name, indulge in Your mercy and wait,

in fervent good faith, for my own timely, fragrant ripening.

O child of God, repeat His name devoutly.

Mercy is what you are after.

Light and lofty

Light and lofty

The linnet bird touts
its high wire wisdom

without contention, knowing
not enough to be consequential -

a statement of conditions,
not a song of complaint or praise.

Brilliant, this moment of sunlight
in the glen on its warm

feathered, bird-boned back,
a smidgen of bliss

far as the breeze will carry.
How light and lofty

to be inconsequential,
above all, in God's corner

singing in, of and for the blue sky
and the wide green world

not one qualified, discordant,
contestable note.

O child of God, trade in your intuitive discernment
for the clean abandonment of not-knowing.

                           

A thunderous commitment

A thunderous commitment                                                                     

You didn’t observe silence

so much as drop speech –

emerging from the Jhopdi one morning

to go scrupulously about Your business

without the accoutrement of words.

Brabazon said You were

the personification of God’s silence

which has labored and endured

intrinsically since time began. 

You stopped speaking and where speech

would seem essential, carried on without it,

Your silence becoming an oddity to most

and a thunderous commitment to others –

a statement of a sort –

delving deeper into the scheme of things

than human expression would allow.

O child of God, the mystery of His silence

is the everyday mystery of existence.

Cigar box treasures

Cigar box treasures                                                                               

O child, your father is kindly indulgent,

viewing your cigar box treasures.

You hope to catch God’s ear with imaginings

garnered from the teachings –

proud of your knowledge, your disciplines,

your rock-ribbed faith.  O petitioner!  

You have to be broken to pray –

drop to your knees as if from a blow;

broken, not like a horse – but, irrevocably,

like an egg crushed underfoot.

You have to bring to your father

your most humble possessions –

ignorance, trepidation, disbelief;

helplessness and bewilderment.

You have to bring Him the truth

sans adornment or elaboration.

O child of God, when will you view yourself

through the eyes of your father?

The rhabdomancer's art

The rhabdomancer’s art                                                                          

O seeker, you want the living water

but long crusted over is that fount. 

Your tears speckle the nondescript dust

while a stone’s drop beneath you,

silent to your ears,

the living water roils

in the thirst-no-more fountain of Jesus.

It requires the rhabdomancer’s art –

a true divination where and how

to unearth this treasure.   

You’ll never find it on your own –

you’re not sharp enough,

your dual, disparate ends

not coming together

into that magically effective,

one-pointed rod of divining and divinity.

O child of God, silently Meher points the way

to the most rewarding place to delve.

                     

A reluctant tongue

A reluctant tongue                                                         

I wish, at times, I could go the rest of my life

uttering not a word, only essential,

handwritten notes or perhaps an alphabet board,

to preserve not my silence but, my solitude.

There’s safety in solitude.

It’s so wearisome – at times – the vigilance,

tolerating any other’s presence.

We embrace as the waltz begins.

I try to follow the music;

my body fails to cooperate.

My knees stiffen.  Poise deserts me.

I clump along praying for the song to end.

How often I have prayed to be different than I am.

The angel at the gate, (answers my Lord),

is on the lookout for a slim, timid man

with bum knees and a reluctant tongue.

O child of God, play the part as written.

Every element serves the plot.

Meher Baba's flag

Love's vernacular

Love’s vernacular                                                                                    

No wonder You kept silent.  No one

knew what You were talking about!

Mighty lonesome in a world where

so rarely spoken is love's vernacular. 

O, how You roared and raged;

shouted;  paced Your cage.

Your silence fell upon deaf ears. 

All Your efforts were about love.

Love, we know not the meaning of the word.

And our own silence – we reject out of hand,

deathly afraid of it – the silence of submission;

the silence of non-existence.

O child of God, why speak of Meher?

Silence is the language of love.

Tinsmith

Tinsmith                                                                                                    

Mani gave the figure of a tinsmith

hammering a bowl into shape,

his other hand hidden,

supporting the blows from beneath.

With the mandali, You were exacting –

(merciless as the law of karma),

hammering home, time and again,

restraint, discipline and obedience,

Your rebukes tempered afterwards

with love-gestures and divine pardon.

With lovers afar (and yet to come)

You stressed remembrance and devotion,

allowing Illusion to deliver

the shaping blows, presenting Yourself

as the forbearing Companion,

the One Whose love is unconditional.

O child of God, each according to its ripeness;

the depth of its slumber.