Crushed

Crushed

O Beloved, You are infinitely and eternally free

and yet, You are bound to us ... and bound by our limitations.

You laid aside the garb of Infinite Power

to walk among us in the flesh.

The harvest of an entire vineyard, crushed and poured

          into one bottle,

and then, that rare wine is handed around among the multitudes.

O Ancient One, You put on yet another lovely coat

          to roam this dusty world!

Patched and threadbare after a time, You discarded it.

Countless ages ago, a naked God put on the garment of Illusion.

One day, Illusion will be cast off, like a threadbare coat.

Then, Your lovers will find their way home,

surrendering in one last, unencumbered embrace.

O child of God, drink from that ageless bottle

and cling to the garment that veils the Essence.

                           (from The Garden of Surrender)

Window of time

Window of time                                                                                 

O Beloved, You were silent.

Remind us of that

as the intellectuals chase Your words

through the mazes

of God Speaks and Lord Meher,

capturing them like butterflies –

pinned behind glass,

only their bright shells left;

silent as if the man Himself was behind glass

gesturing Truth through that small window of time.

In our dark dreaming, let us not expect words

to awaken us but the Word of His Love,

the Real Word

we have been forever longing to hear.

O child of God, listen with the heart’s ear –

where words and silence both strike to the core.

                       (from A Jewel in the Dust)

Grace intruded

Grace intruded                                                                                

Grace intruded upon my habitual sorrow

and marked me for its own

like a pattern of ink under the skin, 

like an imperfectly minted coin,       

a misprinted postage stamp

or a raw diamond selected for its flaws.

Plucked like a flower

for a vase on a bedside table;

like a wild colt culled from the herd –

lassoed, corralled and broken;

like a shell found on the beach

or an injured bird unable to resume

its migratory route,

I left the broad path

for the narrow and the crooked 

and now – no path at all . . .

making my way as everyone must

who tramps toward the gates –

without precedent,

yet, with a Companion who by turns comforts,

inspires, fortifies and illumines the way ahead.

O child of God, Grace is beyond your ken.

To whom much is given much is required.

(from A Jewel in the Dust)

Beautiful birds

Beautiful birds

O Beloved, You bathed the feet of lepers,

rinsing away centuries of accumulated dirt.

Then, You touched Your holy forehead

to their distended stumps.

Beautiful birds in ugly cages, You called them.

Only You could see their true beauty.

In the years I have been with you, O Beloved,

parts of me have atrophied and fallen away.

Through the eyes of the world, I now seem disfigured;

crippled and useless.

I am a beggar at Your door, desperate to remain

in Your good graces.

I am slowly dying, one appurtenance at a time.

O Beloved, let the beautiful flame of a bird within me

sing fervently among these ruins!

Let me serenade You as the cage that entraps me

cracks and rusts away.

O child of God, rejoice within your ugly cage.

Your Beloved is that beautiful bird that flares and sings

          brightly within you.

                  (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

The darshan moment

The darshan moment                                                                      

Living for tomorrow 

is a pilgrim in the queue,

absently fingering a garland,

inching his way toward darshan.

Living in the past, a pilgrim

walking back to the retreat

empty-handed under the stars,

the warmth fading in his chest.

The task is to live in the darshan moment.

Behind the doors you’ve burst through, 

in the kneeling and bowing moment,

on the floor of cold stone tears.

He awaits you – expects you – every moment,

a cleft of shoulder and neck

in which to hide your crumbling face

and empty your heart; a pillar to lean on,

a gaze from eyes shining

with an unearthly love.

O child of God, live in the darshan moment.

Before and after are the nuances of a listless dream.
                         

The sole heir

The sole heir                                                                                     

Though illegitimate, the courts declared him the sole heir.

His inheritance – a decaying mansion with a vast collection of art.

Times being hard, he immediately tried to sell off

a random painting.  It proved a forgery.

Another proved the same.

And yet another.

The last of his money went into

having the whole collection examined.

  

Worthless, the assessor declared.

The son cursed his fate. 

 

He cursed his father – the old man’s

deception and profligacy, his cruelty and neglect.

An elderly servant brought forth a small painting

kept apart from the others.  It was a depiction of the Christ.

The assessor began to weep.  There is no way,

he said, to assign value to this piece –

it is an icon from the days of the early church.

You have only to name a price and your fortune is made.

The young man’s eyes fell upon the eyes of his Lord.

He blessed his father in the name of Jesus and remained poor,

returning the painting to its place in the old mansion’s chapel.

Upon his death, the icon was bequeathed to the local church.

O child of God, reject the meticulously replicated forgeries.

Cling to the one authentic treasure which has been laid at your feet.

                              (from A Jewel in the Dust)

The crux of embrace

The crux of embrace                                                                      

As its fragrance is hidden in the rose,

my Beloved said,

so My presence is hidden in the human heart.

Under our noses, Lord – unobserved

within ourselves and others.

Only faith and desire keep us daring

the crux of embrace.

Yes, the heart gets tipsy at the first nip 

of Your wine – dances in its cage;      

deeper in the cup, it grows weepy and ponderous.

And when Your fire sweeps through –

first, a searing pain, then burned rubble

from which to look out sheepishly upon the world.

But, You promised us, You promised Your presence  

every moment woven into the heart’s delicate

warp and weft, so pervasively, the rose,

having never set tender foot beyond its vast domain,

                                                           

goes about wailing and weeping

at the absence of its own scent.

O child of God, turn from the world’s enticements

to discover within, the fragrance of God.

                          

Your brush strokes

Your brush strokes

Tonight, as these prayers are being said,

looking out upon the bowed heads of Your lovers,

in my heart, also, heads are bowed. Voices blending in arti;

there are voices and harmonies within me as well.

And, as I kneel for Your darshan, in the tomb-shrine

of my heart there is, also, a kneeling.

On this nondescript hill, a small group

has gathered tonight from around the world.

We have come to bow down to the holiest part

          within us and all human beings.

What a long journey to reach Your humble abode!

O Beloved, in Your Tomb-Shrine I have found my refuge.

In the shrine of my heart, let me offer You refuge.

Paint the walls within it in Your lovely brush strokes,

scenes from a life of Purity and holy Love.

O child of God, garland the stone of your heart-shrine.

Prepare it lovingly for the arrival of the Guest.

                                  (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

Toward a rendezvous

Toward a rendezvous                                                                     

Every moment I’m being ushered

into the presence of the King.

Abducted, heavily cloaked –

the horses gallop, the coach hurtles

toward a predestined rendezvous.

After millenniums, the tide is turning,

gaining momentum, 
sweeping everything out to sea.

Our gazes meet as the water swirls

urgently around our ankles.

It matters little now if loved ones are

swept beyond arm’s length –

we are bound for the same depths,

our fate sealed, our salvation assured!

In this last measure,

approaching those fabled gates,

I keep them in my heart,

souls interlocked, enfolded

into the turbulent embrace
of Arms Everlasting.

O child of God, Love has drenched you to the core.

For such Grace, your life is the only proper barter.

Humility

Humility                                                              

Your face everywhere at the Center –

a photograph or painting in every room;

from the ethereal beauty of Your younger days

to the silent majesty of the latter.

Seeing Your face, Lord, let my gaze fall

at Your feet – where it belongs;    

as I must one day – mind, body and spirit –

         fall at Your feet,

to become the dust under Your heels.

Grant me the humility, Lord, to accept myself as I am

by accepting You for Who You are.

Even as my asking is a vain conceit,

I long for the poverty of such humility.

Exhaust my storehouse until there’s nothing left

that’s not a gift from You.

Fill my cellar with only Your wine –

that I might share a cup with everyone

           who comes to the door.

O child of God, try to love those who you cannot love,

perhaps, beginning with yourself.

(from A Jewel in the Dust)

Confine yourself

Confine yourself                                                     

O Meher, You confined Yourself – in the Jopdhi,

in the table-cabin, in the bamboo cage,

in sundry mountain caves, in the blue bus,

in a hut atop Tembi Hill;

in the crypt before ... and after

it became Your Tomb.

You confined Yourself –

in Your great Silence; in Your human body.

You confined Yourself, perhaps

to show how we might be free.

                                                                                       

O pilgrim, retire now to the narrow,

holy cell of remembrance; of contemplation     

and meditation; fetter your mind and tongue

to the unyielding repetition of His name.

Confine yourself to God.

If God is not enough, what is?

O child of God, it’s Illusion that’s restrictive,
repetitive and tedious.  The Truth of Meher is boundless.

Bread and wine

Bread and wine

O Beloved, speak to me now.

Your words have become my bread.

Pour the wine.

I am Your son and I thirst.

The river is flowing, inside and out, and I am bewildered.

Soothe me with Your fingertips and fragrant rose-balm.

My restless heart wounds itself on the ribs of its cage.

O Beloved, offer the silence of quenched desire.

I asked for words and received Your haunting melody

and a wine-soaked poem that won’t translate

            into any language.

Your voice sounds in the dark confines of the human heart.

Wine spills from its trembling vessel and drowns my thirst.

O child of God, rejoice in the wordless poetry of your Beloved;

the bread and wine that draws you each moment

            ever closer to Him.

                            (from The Garden of Surrender)

Where my heart used to be

Where my heart used to be                                                    

You left a ruby where my heart used to be.

There’s a fire inside that stone.

Now the world is a busy dream

on the periphery of its hard lucidity. 

Now its heat and glow

is the gauge of my every endeavor.

The myriad paths of my calculations

peter out into sunlit fields and green woods;

wires cross and sputter; mechanisms derail.

Cause and effect – hoisted on their own petard.

The balladeer is a drunkard and a romantic,

yet, when he stumbles and injures himself,

he remains thoroughly intoxicated,

his Dulcinea ever more pure and wieldy.

Just so, the fire in the stone

draws my prodigal heart –

for what would deter it?

In joy, I burn.  In suffering, I burn.

O child of God, nurture the flame within.

This burning is the foot path to liberation.

(from Spoken For)

One day to blur

One day to blur 

There are all sorts of theories about You.

I don’t know what to believe.

So, long ago, I stopped believing –

beyond belief ... beyond disbelief.

Rain falls and I don gear to keep me dry.

Where is opinion and belief in that?

Mortar holds the bricks together.

Oil lubricates the mechanisms.

The eightfold path – a photo taken from space;

no conjectures there.

I take my Beloved for granted.

Didn’t He promise – He is always with me? 

O pilgrims, I am a raindrop one day to blur into the Ocean.

My opinion is, my opinion is of little consequence –

using what works and discarding what fails,

I find my Beloved closer than the vein in my neck.

O child of God, drop that six foot pole,

sink to the bottom to find out where you are.

                     (from A Jewel in the Dust)

Empty bowl

Empty bowl
                                                                            

With begging bowl, I roamed the streets,

unaware of the jewel sewn into my garment.

During my last incarceration, You baked me a cake,

folding into the sweet batter a serrated file. 

You showed me how my bowl might be used

as a chalice ... or as a ghamela

carting away stones of the wall --  by Your grace --

continuously being dismantled between us,

scattering them in the barren fields
from which they came.

Later, You turned the bowl upside down

to wear on my head like a crown;

like Quixote tilting with the windmills.

How great is the jewel of Your compassion!

Each moment the river deposits

it’s thick effulgence at the door of my hovel.

I have only to step outside to stake my claim.

I have only to position my bowl under the spigot of God.

O child of God, beware of the illusion of poverty.

Nothing is worth more ... or less ... than your empty bowl.

(from Spoken For)

Extraordinary forms

Extraordinary forms                                                                        

So many masters in the world

promising liberation.  I belong to the One

Who declared Himself

liberated from all promises.

Down to the bitter dregs,

now the real work begins.

Nostalgic for that moonlit garden;

the fragrance of His sanctuary ...

but, the artist sculpts in a studio, 

far from the garden’s pedestal;

no slaughterhouse in a field of lilies,

nor butcher’s table beneath the pergola.

Love takes extraordinary forms –

disillusionment, grief, chaos, despair.

He gives us fair warning –

not for the weak, nor the faint-hearted.

O child of God, the One Who seems so far away,

is at your elbow, sword in hand.

                  (from A Jewel in the Dust)    

Spinning tales

Spinning tales                                                                                 

I hadn’t a clue – so You scattered a few about –

sandal prints under my windows;

sacred threads snagged in the hedgerow;

Your blood staining the cross within my chest.

People wonder why I go on about this!

It’s ancient history, they say.

I’m like the angler whose trophy fish is mounted

          above the mantle –

I can’t stop spinning tales about it!

Especially when Your wine gets me drunk

and I feel again the excitement of finding You

          on the end of my line.

Gone forever -- the despair of empty nets

pulled again and again from the sea of illusion.

My nets are bursting now, my vessel in danger of sinking

under the weight of Your bounty.

Jesus must have smiled when I turned down Your street –

He’d sent me that way years ago looking for You.

O child of God, the Avatar is the fisher of men.

It’s His hook causing that pain in your chest.