Trapeze

Trapeze                                                                                                       

This imperfect human love

and its accompanying grief

which my Lord has marked

as hypocritical and self-serving,

is, as my Lord well knows,

all I have, the best part of me

and though it invites suffering

I cannot let it go, knowing 

that motive would also be

hypocritical and self-serving.

I grip one bar of the trapeze

while trying to grasp the other

and end up crucified between the two

suspended far above the sawdust

not knowing which way to swing

daring not to let go of either.

O child of God, it is the duality of existence

that makes for every difficulty.

(drawing by Rich Panico)

The promised skies

The promised skies                                                                                 

If this wordsmith fashioned with iron

the letters of my thousand poems,

they would not balance a single nugget

of truth yet in the buried ore.

I take the words I am given dutifully

but none of their meticulously arranged letters

are key-shaped to fit the locks of my fetters.

Pain exists apparently to keep us

from getting too comfortable on our perch

with joy an intermittent spur to not lose heart entirely –

inarticulate glimpses of the possibilities beyond.

These poems are a part of the chains

forged in this lifetime; part of your chains, too.

Enduring a perch from which I can find

no way to lift my pinioned body

and explore the promised skies.

O child of God, the worth of these poems

may lie in their inability to tell the truth.

Heaven bound

Heaven bound                                             

I suppose I’m heaven bound – if there is a heaven –

whether by effort or worthiness,

by longing or faith or by divine intervention.

Utter mortality I can vaguely imagine,

individual consciousness a bubble once burst

as if it never was, but I can’t quite fathom

a finite heaven, lost souls forever

hovering outside its gates. 

I can’t quite imagine an existence

in perpetual limbo – not a path

to somewhere, reward or not,

though I grant you, all things are possible

beyond the limits of my inadequate imaginings.

I can’t be wrong, of course, because

I don’t know enough to be wrong or right. 

So I wait, idly contemplate, sing and shudder

according to mood, hoping each will be

deemed an expression of surrender.

O child of God, you are some kind of heaven bound –

without knowing the least bit of truth about it.

These earthen fingers

These earthen fingers                                                                            

I’ll never be allowed to enter the gates.

Saint Peter will ask for identification.

If my photo bears any resemblance, I’ll be turned away. 

There’s no one sitting at the feet of Jesus.

The Father is the house of many mansions.

Jesus is the only One home.

Reaching the human stage, I can rise no higher.

Earth was built for worms and human beings.

Shed my sanskaras?  I am my sanskaras.

Working frantically for the balloon to rise,

I find myself a bag of sand, no way

for these earthen fingers to unknot the rope.

O child of God, you must become a child,

one who has not yet been given a name.

Red herrings and wild geese

Red herrings and wild geese                                                                           

Neti, neti . . . neti, neti –

the process of negation and elimination. 

No choice, really, but a seeing through,

an unhanding of anything unimaginable anymore

as valuable or desirable and so life narrows down –

the passion, pain and pleasure of it.

One day (I’m told) we’ll see the whole as neti, neti,

nothing of any value to attach ourselves to

having run out of red herrings and wild geese.

Then, we can never go back,

the only choice left in the Oneness being

all or nothing – Truth or illusion, God or self;

not a choice really but a seeing through, an unhanding

of our non-existence and acceptance of God as everything.

O child of God, seek now the pristine view of the dream –

empty and momentary, dependent, signifying nothing.

Chronic homesickness

Chronic homesickness                                                                                     

I’ll face my fears one day (I’m told),

a steady gaze dispelling them at last,

not to prove myself worthy

nor to please the Lord of Bliss,

not with the intention of becoming

Who I reportedly already am

but merely to settle an outstanding debt.

To offer in obedience and good conscience

the only mite of currency I possess,

returning (at last) what belongs to Him

and in the process becoming empty enough

to be wafted back to the now foreign shore of my origin.

O child of God, for your lonely, chronic

homesickness, surrender is the only cure.

The illusion of autonomy

The illusion of autonomy                                                                        

Rather than say, forgive me, Lord,

why not say thank You, thank You?

Not only for the pointed-out errors

but for the standing apart from them,

the by-His-grace opening of the eyes,

mind and heart, at least in retrospect,

to the sins that doom; that once went

undetected and unchallenged;

that once were deemed necessary,

even taken to be virtues.

Thank You for the ripening –

the slow gentle pull of the pure soul

up from the muck of illusion;

the ageless apparent journey

from stone hardness to fruition to dissolution.

And thank You, Lord, thank You,

for being the one witness to my battle,

my only gauge, my helpmate,

my guide, my only companion;

my one source of encouragement.

O child of God, let go of everything

by letting go the illusion of autonomy.