The interior

The interior                                                                                                      
 
Put away the road map.
You’ve reached the rim
 
of the interior – uncharted territory.
Echoes of travelers past
 
are all you have to guide you.
Hang up your boots.  
 
Time to stop begging door to door. 
The only footprints in the dust
 
have turned out to be your own.
But you should no longer be trying
 
to get from here to there.  What you want
is to fade away where you stand,
 
the trek now a descent from head to heart
taken by someone you don’t even know.
 
O child of God, become footless
to one day become headless. 

 

Heartstrings

Heartstrings                                                                                                     
 
Love.  Look it up in the dictionary
if you care to read a human handful
 
of pallid descriptions – fondness;
deep affection; enjoyment. 
 
Love – the antonym of hate;
the opposite of fear. 
 
Will that do for an answer? 
Or, maybe, love –
 
the mystery beyond description.
There’s no definition in that crowded book
 
for that which we are most desperately yearning –
a Word to break our chains;
 
to pull us up from the muck
by our heartstrings. 
 
O child of God, keep your ear cocked
toward the otherworld silence of Meher. 

The duty of prayer

The duty of prayer                                                                      
 
I pray with clasped hands – one mine, the other, Yours.
“I’m closer than that!” You say.
 
Zacchaeus felt unworthy to pray
or to even be in Your line of sight,
 
wanting only to gaze upon You
passing with the crowd,  
 
hanging secret
and silent among the foliage.
 
But, You heard his heart’s prayer –
that moan of surrender, lifting
 
from the mat stretched out
on the floor of his chest.
 
From that high perch, he glimpsed,
the bounty of his own treasure house!
 
In prayer again, I imagine . . . You, passing in the street. 
Like Zacchaeus, I’m perilously balanced,
 
secret and silent, my mouth giving over
to the heart its sacred duty of prayer.
 
O child of God, hasn’t Meher told you?
God listens only to the language of the heart.

Bogeyman

Bogeyman                                                                                                       
 
Forgive me, Lord, for refusing to forsake myself.
I’m just trying to protect (as You well know)
 
a child from being crushed by the darkness;
keeping at bay the bogeyman from under the bed.
 
I believe You (with all my faithless heart),
when You say that it’s only a dream –
 
still, my childish dreaming goes on.
I can’t shake myself awake.
 
That will take my Father’s hand, I suppose. 
Ask for nothing, You say. 
 
So, obediently, my lips are sealed
but my heart (with which I seem to have no truck), 
 
is ever begging You for comfort and release.
A child who has been forsaken by everyone he trusted
 
(who, one and all, turned out to be merely human)
(especially me), so I turn to the One
 
who says He’s above and beyond the human;
who says He is indeed my one true Friend.
 
O child of God, God is the child, the bogeyman,
the dreamer and the dream.  There’s no one else to turn to.

The big top

The big top                                                                                                      
 
I got too close to the circus and it lost its charm.
Spied the tease of flesh between the fishnet,
 
the cheap spangles; the music’s blare;
grunting acrobats, exhausted clowns;
 
the pervasive beast and excrement smell, 
the exaggerated theatrics, the sawdust’s filth –
 
and the glamour was gone forever.
I walked out between the roaring stands
 
onto a cold spring pasture;
took in the breeze,
 
a new moon, the countless stars
and have never again been tempted
 
by the big top’s threadbare glitter
and the empty pitches of the circus touts.
 
O child of God, once you see the truth of the lie
you can wring no joy from the greatest show on earth.

Tempest

Tempest                                                                                                
 
Kitty put the kettle on in the dark
bare dak bungalow under orders
 
from the tour guide, shotgun rider,
nary a word spoken the whole, long shebang;
 
a tempest brewing in Your little teapot
soon to rattle windows around the world –
 
forerunner winds tousling Your hair,
lifting Your garment’s edge –
 
earth bowing at hallowed feet; masts in range
bursting into ecstatic flames –
 
the kettle’s increase rattling
above Your steady blue fire. 
 
Years later, (Your wares taken to market),
dismissing Your donkey
 
with a slap on the rump, carted up  
to that lying-down darshan – seven centuries’ rest –
 
as the consequent storm breaks and flashes
above Your body, carrying out,
 
faithfully, one hundred percent,
Your lifetime of work so artfully arranged.
 
O child of God, doesn’t it make perfect sense?
Seek shelter in the One Who created the storm.
 
                              (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

Left coat pocket

Left coat pocket                                                                                               
 
Beyond imagination and conception
(goes the prayer) – trying to apprehend God
 
with the mind apparently like
a thirsty man requesting water
 
and then pouring it into his left coat pocket.
To know Him within, the mind must be checked
 
so the long-cloaked heart might bloom –
hear, feel, taste God’s presence secured
 
deeply within its cage of flesh. 
Then will come to us (Meher has promised)
 
an authentic, continuous way of existence,
as rich as it is fearless, as gleeful as it is transient,
 
the mind’s dominance broken,
the heart illumined, shattering
 
our long-held, ancient, accepted view
of God, the world and ourselves.
 
O child of God, Meher said suffering’s cause
is the nascent apparatus of human perception.

The weighted Word

The weighted Word                                                                                         
 
Just love me, said my Lord,
perhaps to re-introduce the word to us;
 
to alter the general bearings of our karmic drift;
to make the gradual shift from our being
 
daunted beseechers of God to enrapt lovers. 
What seems like choice (said Meher)
 
is simply the winning out
of one sanskaric compulsion over another.
 
As tendrils of His sown love-seeds
emerge and entwine the heart,
 
we might imagine a subtle listing at each juncture,
away from the usual rutted fears and desires
 
toward a new tack; toward freedom, home
and the final God-centered harbor.
 
O child of God, Meher came to awaken us
and the weighted Word He uses is love.

 

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.
 
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.
Name a price and your fortune is made.
 
The young man’s eyes fell upon the face of Jesus.
He blessed his father and remained poor,
 
returning the painting to its place in the 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, 2011) 

Every green soul

Every green soul                                                                                              
 
Deeply buried, this seed in the soil,
so hard, so small, so self-contained.
 
If it’s ever known moisture, ever known
light and greenness, they are far from it now,
 
merely rumors in the dark. 
Yet it hears above, every now and then,
 
what seems like the whisper of distant rain;
imagines, perhaps, a descending warmth; 
 
senses the season’s change.
But it’s difficult to keep your faith and heart
 
while essentially ignorant of your own potential,
the elements inherent within you
 
and the outward forces, prearranged and aligned,
inexorably pulling you up to the groundbreaking –
 
there to flower in the quiet warmth, the light;
to know at last the storybook ending –  
 
the fragrance, savor and sight
of the fruit you were ever destined to bear.
 
O child of God, in your Father’s garden surely
there is a place prepared for every green soul.

  

An unimaginable aptness

An unimaginable aptness                                                                       
 
It’s bliss that’s promised us –
God’s bliss.  That of which He is made.
 
Not joyful exuberance;
nor ecstasy with its excruciation. 
 
Not merriment with its amiability –
to be proffered and shared.
 
Bliss implies serenity, a certain passivity,
a coming quietly to rest,
 
yet more than mere contentment,
something beyond our humanity –
 
a culmination, the purpose fulfilled, destination reached;
the returning to a holy and unimaginable aptness. 
 
O child of God, you might describe bliss
as the permanent end to feeling incomplete.

You had Your chance

You had Your chance                                                                 
 
You had Your chance to speak
but, held Your piece – perhaps,
 
because only a handful understood Your language.
Later, Your silence became Gautama’s flower;
 
a sand grain, moon and stars’ silence;
the noiseless marrow of our bones;
 
the pause between heartbeats;
the silence of the backs of our hands,
 
the napes of our necks –
a silence wrapped in dust;
 
the kernel of the grain;
the hollowness in the horn of plenty.
 
You had Your chance to speak –
and Your Word flooded the planes,
 
reaching the smallest, most turbulent and severe
of all our dry places; sated the heart
 
and began our re-acquaintance
with the lost language of God. 
 
O child of God, His dialogue, continuous and pervasive,
how could you ever feel beyond its range?   

                               (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

 

Clay pigeon

Clay pigeon                                                                                                     
 
Forty years wandering the desert.
I thought I was getting somewhere.
 
I was just pacing the length of my cell.
Dropping to my knees, I made it a prayer cell.
 
Later, I began to listen instead of ask.
I know now why the clay pigeon sings –
 
in anticipation (once the blood is drained)
of becoming the broken and singing dust (o Francis!)
 
though the natural wont of dust
is to settle quietly at the Beloved’s feet.
 
I sing this verse at His request and only
to the One Who gave it to me (I sing my best)
 
while He sees to its being further given away
to whomever’s heart He wishes its melody to touch.
 
O child of God, become quiet as dust
to hear Meher’s heart-rending song of silence.

The exchange

The exchange                                                                                                  
 
In my prime, I galloped easily enough,
carrying the torch in a marathon relay
 
but fatigue has now invaded my legs and lungs.
I search the landscape for the next bearer,
 
the flame to be carried (I am told)
onto a new stretch of a heavenly-charted path.
 
While running, I recite the scriptures
that say I am the fire I bear
 
(although I never do quite believe it).  
I see now, stumbling toward the exchange,
 
that most of what I think of as me
is destined to dissipate, give way,
 
lie down covered and surrounded by the dirt
I have lifelong trampled underfoot.
 
Yet I imagine, while I still might, that roaring flame
jogging onward in someone else’s hand,
 
beyond my outstretched fingers,
into the soft silent darkness beyond.
 
O child of God, such a far-fetched discrepancy: 
Who Meher says you are and who you take yourself to be. 

Headless and footless

Headless and footless                                                                            
 
Some cover their heads in reverence;
many approach You hat in hand;
 
some gaze upwards in prayer, others 
fall to their knees or bellies.
 
For some, You are found in the heart;    
others relegate You to heaven.
 
Some eat intimately Your body
and drink Your blood;
 
for others, even Your name
is forbidden in their mouths.
 
One day none of this will matter
(You assure us).
 
Each lover will be headless and footless,
without mouth or eyeballs, belly or knees –
 
the Essence of each other, the Self-Aware
Essence of That which they seek.   
 
O child of God, Who is Meher Baba?  He once described Himself
as That which provokes this question in you.
 
                              (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

  

The Incomparable

The Incomparable                                                                                            
 
It doesn’t quite hit the mark (say the Mystics)
to consider God’s creation as perfect.
 
It’s more like God’s creation is nonpareil –
a flowing, holy phenomenon appearing momentarily
 
through the aperture of individual consciousness. 
The butterfly is not yesterday’s caterpillar.
 
Ashes are not last night’s fire.  In the poet’s duality,
the Incomparable might be likened to a bird
 
on a limb admiring the play of light
upon its brightly-colored plumage.
 
O child of God, when will this self-enchantment end
and that mighty, imaginary bird take flight?

The small, small self

The small, small self                                                                                        
 
Mind is the culprit, said my Lord,
luring the self, through thoughts,
 
away from the holy, momentary Real
into a realm of its own making;
 
providing an illusory continuity,
vacillating between fantasy of future
 
and the illusion of memory,
only lightly touching upon the Now
 
as we chase our desires; run from our fears;
conjure ourselves up a world
 
where we are the center, the purpose,
the sovereign and goal; where even God
 
(if we care to imagine One)
we have tamed to follow our bidding.
 
O child of God, how brief, lonely and futile
is the small, small self.
 

No choice

No choice                                                                                             
 
A horse put through its paces –
it doesn’t matter in which direction it turns.
 
The purpose is not to get anywhere,
but to train and strengthen the horse.
 
Joy is encouragement whispered
          in a tucked-back ear.
Suffering is spur-shaped and bloody.
 
Abraham, placing Isaac on the altar,
lay his own heart under the sword.
 
His Beloved advised, “Choose God,
because . . . there is no choice.
 
“God is Love, or else
your boy is dead already.
 
“Willfulness leads you in circles.
No gate but the starting gate.
 
“Only submission can lift you from the spot you’re in.
Grow wings and become a creature of the sky!” 
 
O child of God, choose obedience
and compulsion will cease to bind your spirit.
 
                              (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

Until there is

Until there is                                                                                                    
 
Forgive me if I sometimes refer to You as ‘Lord of my heart’.
We both know that is only wishful thinking.
 
How to get You down into its buried depths? 
If I remember You, You are in my head – a mere thought.
 
Say Your name – You are a maddening taste upon my tongue.
Breathe in Your fragrance, You enter my lungs – and out again.
 
If I partake of Your bread and wine
You become my flesh surrounding
 
and blood flowing through the heart’s aching hollowness.
O Lord!  Wield the key You possess to my (treasure) chest.
 
Swing wide the door of my bone-ribbed cage. 
Assume the throne within and rule, Lord of Love,
 
until my heart is separate no longer
from You and Yours, nor from any other.
 
O child of God, there is no how with destiny and grace.
There is only isn’t until there is.

 

This original error

This original error                                                                                            
 
Unsettling and powerful – my Lord simultaneously
deconstructing the world and my self-image,
 
each task revealing an inherent, sustained perspective
that creates, moment to moment, the illusion
 
of a stable and continuous existence experienced
separatively by a misconception I call myself.
 
This ongoing and original error  
requires the ultimate disillusionment –
 
a loss of faith and trust in every conditional thing
I take now to be true.
 
O child of God, hold tightly to His damaan
while everything collapses around you.

A torch for You

A torch for You                                                                                    
 
Become hopeless, You say. 
I’ve invested all the hope I have
 
in the One whose shoulders
bear the weight of multitudes;
 
entrusted with the Mandali’s souls –
Mani’s guileless adoration, for example;
 
Mehera’s unworldly devotion;
Eruch’s plea:  Don’t let me down!
 
Love makes no demands
but promises invoke certain expectations.
 
Faith is blind in the end,
but there are flares along the way.
 
I look to those burned-out, love-ravaged souls
who carried to their graves, a torch for You
 
and the silent assurance and authority with which
You accepted their immeasurable sacrifice.
 
O child of God, you are a lover of Meher Baba!
What wondrous company you keep!
 
                              (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)