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.