The heart’s ears
For a taste of Heaven, a sip of the raw proof,
settle under a spire where they sing
of pearly gates, the breath of flowers,
the holy fountain, amaranthine bowers,
your heart’s ears to hear and follow.
Miss not the chance in your Sunday suit
to scramble up the mountainside,
lift to your lips the waters of Union
as clearly and truly as might be
brought to this realm by human voices.
And if you cannot yet believe, o seeker,
tear at the obstructions stopping up
your heart’s ears, the sort of
small-minded, literal logic and reasons
that doom the soul again and again
to the ancient rounds of birth and death.
O child of God, listen to both music and silence
with the same transcendent ears of the heart.
Poem of apology
To everyone in this lifetime
whose path I’ve crossed –
I ask forgiveness:
I have lacked humility.
Not my only sin, of course,
but perhaps the most pernicious,
the root of all others,
for it has kept me
from loving you
the way you should be loved,
the way I dream about,
the way my Lord advocates,
the way that would draw us all
nearer to our divine inheritance.
Take this poem as a timorous,
though heartfelt opportunity
for me to seek your forgiveness,
unable ever to ask you face to face.
O child of God, the one reduced to true humility
is no longer there to be forgiven.
A journeyman’s hands
Francis said as stone into dust –
long to be crushed!
The duty of the lover is to sing
his Beloved’s gift of song;
articulate the pain in the distance
between mouth and Ear;
between heart and Heart
solely for the Beloved’s
amusement and entertainment.
Sing, o lover! a reminder of the
day,
when you’ll bear no song,
no mouth and no need of one –
being, at last, the unutterable Truth.
That’s the promise Francis clutched
in a journeyman’s hands;
sang with wine-bright eyes
through an old man’s broken throat –
a gift for his Beloved and for His lovers
gathered near and soon to follow
that bowed, dusty codger into oblivion.
O child of God, begin your apprenticeship as a lover
under that old Aussie ploughman stone mason poet.
The one gauge
Just love Me, my Lord said.
Perhaps His only request.
Love for love’s sake – without hope
of gain, advantage or favor.
There is a dearth in my heart of such love.
And fear growing rank.
The best I might give, Lord, is gratitude
which I have come by honestly –
in response to Your kindness.
Gratitude for the life I’ve led
and for the life You led.
Gratitude for a family and my imperfect love
for all their human beauty.
And gratitude especially for You, Lord,
being indeed my only source of truth,
however ill at times I receive it,
the one gauge in this troubled dreamscape
I trust and cling to, without which
I would have long ago become untethered,
alone, overwhelmed and lost.
O child of God, not knowing what love is,
how can you judge your lack of it?
Monk’s garden
Somehow it’s good to know I haven’t a prayer.
Like old Job – no say-so in the winding up,
the unwinding of my own affairs.
God is in the details and I’m merely one,
hoping to serve by a studious abstention.
I weed my monk’s garden, encouraged
by the yield of abeyance and abrogation.
The old urgency has deserted my legs and lungs
in mid-stride and the pace, this late
in the game, has slowed considerably;
enough to where it’s more comfortable
to take His hand and follow His lead;
relinquish a bit more the irresistible
compulsion and illusion of plotting my own course.
O child of God, settle in as best you might
under the vast foot of the elephant.
(photo by Bif Soper)
Rumi’s field
Rumi’s field – beyond ideas
of wrong-doing and right-doing –
is not so far away.
I’m running my hand
along the top of its fence. It was
never
a great distance to traverse
but a coming to a halt,
turning the handle
and swinging wide the gate.
No one to meet me there but myself,
unencumbered of my knothole view,
my prejudices and opinions.
Ah, to lie down burden-free
in that long grass with the wildflower scent
in the sun-warmed field, upheld
and surrendered like a body on the ocean face
letting the current move me where it will.
It’s so near, just over the fence,
and I won’t leave here without a fight
or until I find a way through its summoning gate.
O child of God, not far away nor far in the future.
Seek advice from your constant Companion.
Not quite a poem
To denounce someone, the first thing
given up is humility. Elementary
physics and geometry –
I must elevate myself to look down upon others.
Not telling anyone to refrain, mind you –
there are invariably good reasons –
just pointing out the price that is always there.
I crane my neck looking up at the mountain.
From the top, I might see equally in all directions.
Knowing intuitively I have not the strength, the discipline,
the courage, the expertise to complete the climb,
I slip on my backpack and start up the rocky trail.
Better to die on the slopes than back at camp.
So many people in the world,
I’m sure they can do without me
adding my own brand of stridency
to the din of blind opinion.
Whatever you guys decide is fine with me,
knowing it will be the Whim and Will of God.
O child of God, you have paid the price,
lost your humility, writing and reciting this not quite a poem.
Salvage and salvation
Over a lifetime, in my own way,
I’ve been moving toward You –
in darkness, by fits and starts, studying warily
the scriptures, claims, promises,
attuning myself to some real
or imagined inner guide.
Here and there at various speeds and coming
now and then to a complete stop,
wondering which bedimmed fork to take,
or why go on with such a lonely, desperate search.
But only very recently, the sun has peeked
over the heaving edge of the world
enough for me to see that I have
ever been trekking the vast deck of a ship
as You return me surely, safely,
irrevocably to home port.
I’m leaning on the rail right now,
taking in the breaking sun, the salt wind
and wondering what I might do, if anything,
to aid in my own salvage and salvation.
O child of God, learn your ship duties;
prepare well for the immeasurable voyage ahead.
