Paper dolls

Paper dolls                                                                                                          

Our lives are spent cutting out paper dolls –

the piecemeal extracted from the whole.

Our hearts set, gazes fixed

upon various relative, handsome,

scissored and brightly-colored figures

we prop up and manage;

with whom we play act for our own exculpation,

amusement and gratification

while discarding the ravaged sheets

from which they are cut, the origin     

and background, field and root,

never to humbly let things lie

unhanded and dormant in their contextual truth

but take up our scissors, our scissors,

again and again, to wreak havoc

upon this paper-thin, flimsy, fluttering world.

O child of God, how improbable and illusory

is the human predicament and personality.

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.

This dewy morning

This dewy morning                                                                                

A green trail left in the morning dew 

where I have walked to the newly turned garden.

No point in asking where the dew

will be later on in the day

nor where it was the crisp cold evening last.

That’s all being taken care of by someone else.

I bend to work the hoe in dew-drenched hands,

till the dewy soil, strike with the blade

the occasional dew-like, hidden pebbles.

I anticipate a succulent harvest a few months hence,

fitting myself as best I might into this small patch

of the universal scheme, accepting whatever the price

and stipulations of its brief sustenance and bounty.

Everything else is being taken care of by someone else.

O child of God, surrender is a quiet thing,

begun every sunrise in humble, laboring silence.

Salt grain

Salt grain                                                                                                  

Today the ocean is rough; yesterday it was serene.

I no longer hope it to be one way or the other.

My shouting above its roar, flailing about in the surf,

my quiet prayers ashore leave no lasting impression.

There is a way of sorts – a footpath through the dunes

that widens upon a rock-solid perch with a panoramic view

where I might sit dispassionately; partake of the salt air,

the siren music, become drenched in its erratic spray –

at a distance – breathing room –

until that distance dissolves

in the salt grain of an ocean drop

joining without boundaries or objections

its mighty eternal, infinite

storm and calm, ebb and flow.

O child of God, the Ocean calls you. 

Work to get more than your feet wet.

Unencumbered of woe

Unencumbered of woe                                                                                   

Holding Meher Baba’s umbrella,

my long legs, tall frame keep pace

as He strides the rough terrain 

of early Meherabad. 

We halt in the middle of a field

and after a long silence He turns,

gestures for me to step nearer,

out of the harsh sun into the circle of shade.

I obey and leave beyond its rim myself,

my quest and all such fearsome bindings;

leave behind the rest of the world. 

No need for anything else

save His Presence, this shelter

beyond attainment, beyond understanding.

O child of God, to trust Meher

is to become unencumbered of woe.

Famous blue overcoat

Famous blue overcoat                                                                                      

O if I could shed my cleverness like an old coat!

Leave it in the seat of a city bus, say,

groaning on without me

or stuff it in a local thrift store bin.

Where it started out as occasional apparel

donned for style, secrecy, protection,

over time it became an essential part of me,

holding everything together.

It became how I daily get through life.

And now that I want to come clean;

strip down to simple naked faith,

now that I yearn to fall apart,

stubbornly, heavily it clings

(and I to it) concealing the real me

as I wrestle and suffocate

under its weight and cover.

O child of God, Meher is leading you by the hand.

Take solace in the truth of your plight.

Under their trilling

Under their trilling                                                                                    

The path of knowledge has petered out

into a thick pine wood ripe with scent and birdsong.  

Its remainder does not lie undiscovered up ahead.

It simply goes no farther.

There’s no key to God’s door

on my considerable chain –

a weight I’ve accumulated for years.

There’s no lock on God’s door;

most likely there’s no door at all out this far. 

What I should do now is toss these keys,

scatter the last of my bread crumbs 

for the gathered, guileless birds

and await my Beloved under their trilling –

hand outstretched but no longer for begging,

merely waiting, do or die, for Him

to take my hand and lead me home.

O child of God, leave it – your salvation

has always been entirely up to Him.

Nonexistence

Nonexistence                                                                                           

Not one thing did I attain, said the Buddha

(per Zen tradition) by realization.

When the illusory bubble over the drop soul bursts,

there is (apparently) no change at all – to drop or Ocean.

You have to get rid of I, me, my and mine, said Meher.

That doesn’t mean become less selfish.

He’s talking about nonexistence. 

He’s talking about becoming

as nonexistent as the illusion that surrounds us.

God alone is Real, Meher said – which means we are not.

Or to put it another way – not we but One.

And when we realize That

nothing is different from what it was

because we never really were at all.

O child of God, one great attribute of God

is that He never changes.

That nonexistent shore

That nonexistent shore                                                                              

My little soul is not a mere drop in the bucket

but according to Meher a drop in an ocean

without a shore, without sky above nor floor below.

An ocean if there is only ocean.

And my soul is not on a journey –

no space to move through,

nowhere to go and no time to get there.

I have no fellow beings, no boundaries,

no autonomy, no existence.

And yet here I am – every day just as if

there were days and nights, lives and deaths,

flesh and bone, five senses, mind and knowledge.

Here I am, o Lord, calling to You

as if You had ears and I had a throat and tongue.

O child of God, let your mind twist and swirl

until it’s dashed upon the stones of that nonexistent shore.

The turn of a knob

The turn of a knob                                                                                      

I hold my tongue (as You suggested

through the silence of a lifetime)

and meet You in that immeasurable space

where real things are exchanged.

Even in these raw, preliminary stages,

I’m allowed through that door

where at the turn of a knob

I’m greeted by Your silence.

There to listen instead of barter,

quiescent rather than seeking,

immobile instead of on the prowl,

humble instead of scheming –

o Lord, I am the silence I listen to.

You are the silence I listen to.

We mingle there as one –

as I mutely place my hand in Yours.

O child of God, continue with your raucous verses.

Meher’s silence contains all sound.

Ocean shell

Ocean shell                                                                                        

Cup this shell to your ear

and listen to the ocean –

its hollow, hushed white noise

somewhere between a silence and a roar.

Shell to ear, ear to heart,

this is the silence Baba left

(with its intimate roar)

to drown out the world’s bellow,

its furor and anguish, 

sham and shallow glamour;

the mind’s incessant stream of self.

Cup this ocean shell to your ear

and leave the populous shore

for the solitude and intangible promise

of the deep high seas, farther out, farther out

towards oblivion and soundless nonexistence.

O child of God, ride the ocean waves

until you lose your boundaries in its briny vastness.

The ancient song

The ancient song                                                                                       

Let him step to the music which he hears,

said Thoreau.  However measured or far away.

Music which leads the soul homeward –

God’s drumbeat into chosen ears.  

Becoming tricky then, two rhythms

competing in an open field

for the souls of a few lovers  

who misstep, lose stride,

turning aside from the wide path

to the winding narrows, able no longer

to keep the world’s tempo nor dance to its tune.

A faint song at first, growing inescapable –

when God starts drumming up business

to serve One, abandon all, another wave of lovers 

struggling to keep pace, leave in the dust

the world’s throng and cadence. 

O child of God, there’s no hope for you –

enchanted forevermore by the ancient song of Meher.