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)